THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE     JESUITS 

1534-1921 


A  History  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  from  Its 
Foundation  to  the  Present  Time 


BY 
THOMAS  J.  CAMPBELL,  SJ. 


NEW  YORK 
THE  ENCYCLOPEDIA  PRESS 


Permissu  superiorum 


NIHIL  OBSTAT:  ARTHUR  J.  SCANLAN,  D.D.,  Censor 
IMPRIMATUR:  PATRICK  J.  HAYES,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of  New  York 


COPYRIGHT  1921 
THE  ENCYCLOPEDIA  PRESS 

All  rights  reserved 


College 
Library 


PREFACE 

SOME  years  ago  the  writer  of  these  pages,  when  on 
his  way  to  what  is  called  a  general  congregation  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  was  asked  by  a  fellow-passenger  on 
an  Atlantic  liner,  if  he  knew  anything  about  the  Jesuits. 
He  answered  in  the  affirmative  and  proceeded  to  give 
an  account  of  the  character  and  purpose  of  the  Order. 
After  a  few  moments,  he  was  interrupted  by  the 
inquirer  with,  "  You  know  nothing  at  all  about  them, 
Sir;  good  day."  Possibly  the  Jesuits  themselves  are 
responsible  for  this  attitude  of  mind,  which  is  not. 
peculiar  to  people  at  sea,  but  is  to  be  met  everywhere. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  Jesuit  has  thus  far  ever 
written  a  complete  or  adequate  history  of  the  Society; 
Orlandini,  Jouvancy  and  Cordara  attempted  it  a  couple 
of  centuries  ago,  but  their  work  never  got  beyond  the 
first  one  hundred  years.  Two  very  small  compendiums 
by  Jesuits  have  been  recently  published,  one  in  Italian 
by  Rosa,  the  other  in  French  by  Brucker,  but  they 
are  too  congested  to  be  satisfactory  to  the  average 
reader,  and  Brucker's  stops  at  the  Suppression  of  the 
Society  by  Clement  XIV  in  1773.  Cretineau-Joly's 
history  was  written  in  great  haste ;  he  is  often  a  special 
pleader,  and  even  Jesuits  find  him  too  eulogistic.  At 
present  he  is  hopelessly  antiquated,  his  last  volume 
bearing  the  date  of  1833.  B.  N.  (Barbara  Neave) 
published  in  English  a  history  of  the  Society  based 
largely  on  Cretineau-Joly.  The  consequence  of  this 
lack  of  authoritative  works  is  that  the  general  public 
gets  its  information  about  the  Jesuits  from  writers  who 
are  prejudiced  or  ill-informed  or,  who,  perhaps,  have 
been  hired  to  defame  the  Society  for  political  purposes. 

V 

1407096 


vi  Preface 

Other  authors,  again,  have  found  the  Jesuits  a  romantic 
theme,  and  have  drawn  largely  on  their  imagination  for 
their  statements. 

Attention  was  called  to  this  condition  of  things  by 
the  Congregation  of  the  Society  which  elected  Father 
Martin  to  the  post  of  General  of  the  Jesuits  in  1892. 
As  a  result  he  appointed  a  corps  of  distinguished  writers 
to  co-operate  in  the  production  of  a  universal  history 
of  the  Society,  which  was  to  be  colossal  in  size,  based 
on  the  most  authentic  documents,  and  in  line  with 
the  latest  and  most  exacting  requirements  of  recent 
scientific  historiography.  On  the  completion  of  the 
various  parts,  they  are  to  be  co-ordinated  and  then 
translated  into  several  languages,  so  as  to  supply 
material  for  minor  histories  within  the  reach  of  the 
general  public.  Such  a  scheme  necessarily  supposes  a 
very  considerable  time  before  the  completion  of  the 
entire  work,  and,  as  matter  of  fact,  although  several 
volumes  have  already  appeared  in  English,  French, 
German,  Spanish  and  Italian,  the  authors  are  still 
discussing  events  that  occurred  two  centuries  ago. 
Happily  their  researches  have  thrown  much  light  on 
the  early  history  of  the  Order;  an  immense  number  of 
documents  inedits,  published  by  Carayon  and  others, 
have  given  us  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
intermediate  period;  many  biographies  have  been 
written,  and  the  huge  volume  of  the  "  Liber  saicularis  " 
by  Albers  brings  the  record  down  to  our  own  days. 
Thus,  though  much  valuable  information  has  already 
been  made  available  for  the  general  reader  the  great 
collaborative  work  is  far  from  completion.  Hence  the 
present  history  of  the  Jesuits. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 
ORIGIN 

The  Name  —  Opprobrious  meanings  —  Caricatures  of  the  PAGE 
Founder  —  Purpose  of  the  Order  —  Early  life  of  Igna- 
tius —  Pampeluna  —  Conversion  —  Manresa  —  The  Ex- 
ercises —  Authorship  —  Journey  to  Palestine  —  The 
Universities  —  Life  in  Paris  — •  First  Companions  — 
Montmartre  First  Vows  —  Assembly  at  Venice.  Failure 
to  reach  Palestine  —  First  Journey  to  Rome  —  Ordina- 
tion to  the  Priesthood  —  Labors  in  Italy  —  Submits  the 
Constitutions  for  Papal  Approval  —  Guidiccioni's  opposi- 
tion —  Issue  of  the  Bull  Regimini  —  Sketch  of  the 
Institute  —  Crypto-Jesuits 1-35 

CHAPTER  II 
INITIAL  ACTIVITIES 

Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Germany,  Italy  —  Election  of 
Ignatius  —  Jesuits  in  Ireland  — "  The  Scotch  Doctor  " 

—  Faber    and    Melanchthon  —  Le    Jay  —  Bobadilla  — 
Council  of  Trent  —  Lafaez,   Salmeron,   Canisius  —  The 
Catechism  —  Opposition  in  Spain  —  Cano  —  Pius  V  — 

**"    First   Missions  to  America  —  The   French   Parliaments 

—  Postel  —  Foundation  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum 
at  Rome  —  Similar  Establishments  in  Germany  —  Cler- 

mont  and  other  Colleges  in  France  —  Colloque  de  Poissy.      36-71 

CHAPTER  III 
ENDS  OF  THE  EARTH 

Xavier  departs  for  the  East  —  Goa  —  Around  Hindostan  — 
Malacca  —  The  Moluccas  —  Return  to  Goa  —  The  Val- 
iant Belgian  —  Troubles  in  Goa  —  Enters  Japan  — 
Returns  to  Goa  —  Starts  for  China  —  Dies  off  the  Coast 

—  Remains  brought  to  Goa  —  Africa  —  Congo,  Angola, 
Caffreria,      Abyssinia  —  Brazil,      Nobrega,      Anchieta, 
Azevedo  —  Failure  of  Rodriguez  in  Portugal 72~95 

vii 


viii  Contents 

CHAPTER  IV 
CONSPICUOUS  PERSONAGES 

Ignatius  —  Lafnez  —  Borgia  —  Bellarmine  —  Toletus  —        PAGE 
Lessius  —  Maldonado  —  Su&rez  —  Lugo  —  Valencia  — 
Petavius  —  Warsewicz  —  Nicolai  —  Possevin  —  Vieira 

—  Mercurian 96-133 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  ENGLISH  MISSION 

Conditions  after  Henry  VIII  —  Allen  —  Persons  —  Campion 

—  Entrance    into    England  —  Kingsley's    Caricature  — 
Thomas    Pounde  —  Stephens  —  Capture   and    death    of 
Campion  —  Other      Martyrs  —  Southwell,      Walpole  — 
Jesuits  in  Ireland  and   Scotland  —  The  English  Succes- 
sion —  Dissensions  —  The   Archpriest    Blackwell  —  The 
Appellants  —  The  Bye- Plot  —  Accession  of   James    I  — 

The  Gunpowder  Plot  —  Garnet,   Gerard 134-165 

CHAPTER  VI 

JAPAN 

1555-1645 

After  Xavier's  time  —  Torres  and  Fcrnandes  —  Civandono  — 
Nunhes  and  Pinto  —  The  King  of  Hirando  —  First  Per- 
secution —  Gago  and  Vilela  —  Almeida  —  Uprising 
against  the  Emperor  —  Justus  Ucondono  and  Nobunanga 
—  Valignani  —  Founding  of  Nangasaki  —  Fervor  and 
Fidelity  of  the  Converts  —  Embassy  to  Europe  — 
Journey  through  Portugal,  Spain  and  Italy —  Reception 
by  Gregory  XIII  and  Sixtus  V  —  Return  to  Japan  — 
The  Great  Persecutions  by  Taicosama,  Daitusama,  Sho- 
gun  I  and  Shogun  II  —  Spinola  and  other  Martyrs  — 
Arrival  of  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  —  Popular  eager- 
ness for  death  —  Mastrilli  —  Attempts  to  establish  a  Hier- 
archy —  Closing  the  Ports  —  Discovery  of  the  Christians.  166-196 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  GREAT  STORMS 
1580-1597 

Manares  suspected  of  ambition  —  Election  of  Aquaviva  — 
Beginning  of  Spanish  discontent — Dionisio  Vasquez — The 
"  Ratio  Studiorum  " —  Society's  action  against  Confessors 
of  Kings  and  Political  Embassies  —  Trouble  with  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  and  Philip  II  —  Attempts  at  a  Spanish 


Contents  ix 

Schism  —  The  Ormanetto  papers  —  Ribadeneira  sus-  PAGE 
pected  —  Imprisonment  of  Jesuits  by  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  —  Action  of  Toletus  —  Extraordinary  Con- 
gregation called  —  Exculpation  of  Aqua  viva  —  The  dis- 
pute "  de  Auxiliis  " —  Antoine  Arnauld's  attack  —  Henry 
IV  and  Jean  Chastel  —  Reconciliation  of  Henry  IV  to 
the  Church  —  Royal  protection  —  Saint  Charles 
Borromeo  —  Troubles  in  Venice  —  Sarpi  —  Palafox 197-227 

CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  ASIATIC  CONTINENT 

The  Great  Mogul  —  Rudolph  Aquaviva  —  Jerome  Xavier  — 
de  Nobili  —  de  Britto  —  Beschi  —  The  Pariahs  —  Enter- 
ing Thibet  —  From  Pekin  to  Europe  —  Mingrelia, 
Paphlagonia  and  Chaldea  —  The  Maronites  —  Alexander 
de  Rhodes  —  Ricci  enters  China  —  From  Agra  to  Pekin 

—  Adam  Schall  —  Arrival  of  the  Tatars  —  Persecutions 

—  Schall  condemned  to   Death  —  Verbiest  —  de  Tour- 
non's    Visit  —  The    French    Royal    Mathematicians  — 
Avril's  Journey 228-267 

CHAPTER  IX 
BATTLE  OF  THE  BOOKS 

Aquaviva  and  the  Spanish  Opposition  —  Vitelleschi  —  The 
"  Monita  Secreta  ";  Morlin  —  Roding  —  "  Historia 
Jesuitici  Ordinis  "  —  "  Jesuiticum  Jejunium  "  — 
"  Speculum  Jesuiticum  "  —  Pasquier  —  Mariana  — 
"  Mysteries  of  the  Jesuits  "  —  "  The  Jesuit  Cabinet  "  — 
"  Jesuit  Wolves  "  —  "  Teatro  Jesuitico  "  —  "  Morale 
Pratique  des  J£suites  "  —  "  Conjuratio  Sulphurea  "  — 
"  Lettres  Provinciales  "  —  "  Causeries  du  Lundi  "  and 
Bourdaloue  —  Prohibition  of  publication  by  Louis  XIV 

—  Pastoral    of    the     Bishops    of    Sens  —  Santarelli  — 
Escobar  —  Anti-Co  ton  —  Margry's  "  Descouvertes  " 

Norbert 268-295 

CHAPTER  X 

THE  Two  AMERICAS 
1567-1673 

Chile  and  Peru  —  Valdivia  —  Peruvian  Bark  —  Paraguay 
Reductions  —  Father  Fields  —  Emigration  from  Brazil 

—  Social  and  religious  prosperity  of  the  Reductions  — 


x  Contents 

Martyrdom  of  twenty-nine  missionaries  —  Reductions  PAGE 
in  Colombia  —  Peter  Claver  —  French  West  Indies  — 
St.  -Kitts  —  Irish  Exiles  —  Father  Bath  or  Destriches  — 
Montserrat  —  Emigration  to  Guadeloupe  —  Other 
Islands  —  Guiana  —  Mexico  —  Lower  California  —  The 
Pious  Fund  —  The  Philippines  —  Canada  Missions  — 
Bre'beuf,  Jogues,  Le  Moyne,  Marquette  —  Maryland  — 
White  —  Lewger 296-342 

CHAPTER  XI 
CULTURE 

Colleges  —  Their  Popularity  —  Revenues  —  Character  of 
education:  Classics;  Science;  Philosophy;  Art  —  Dis- 
tinguished Pupils  —  Poets:  Southwell;  Balde;  Sarbievius; 
Strada;  Von  Spee;  Cresset;  Beschi. —  Orators:  Vieira; 
Segneri;  Bourdaloue. —  Writers:  Isla;  Ribadeneira; 
Skarga;  Bouhours  etc. —  Historians  —  Publications  — • 
Scientists  and  Explorers  —  Philosophers  —  Theologians 
—  Saints 343~386 

CHAPTER  XII 
FROM  VITELLESCHI  TO  RICCI 

1615-1773 

Pupils  in  the  Thirty  Years  War  —  Caraffa;  Piccolomini; 
Gottifredi  —  Mary  Ward  —  Alleged  decline  of  the 
Society  —  John  Paul  Oliva  —  Jesuits  in  the  Courts  of 
Kings  —  John  Casimir  —  English  Persecutions.  Luzancy 
and  Titus  Gates  —  Jesuit  Cardinals  —  Gallicanism  in 
France  —  Maimbourg  —  Dez  —  Troubles  in  Holland. 
De  Noyelle  and  Innocent  XI  —  Attempted  Schism  in 
France  —  Gonzalez  and  Probabilism  —  Don  Pedro  of 
Portugal  —  New  assaults  of  Jansenists  —  Administration 
of  Retz  —  Election  of  Ricci  —  The  Coming  Storm 387-423 


CHAPTER  XIII 
CONDITIONS  BEFORE  THE  CRASH 

State  of  the  Society  —  The  Seven  Years  War  —  Political 
Changes  —  Rulers  of  Spain,  Portugal,  Naples,  France 
and  Austria  —  Febronius  —  Sentiments  of  the  Hierarchy 
—  Popes  Benedict  XIV;  Clement  XIII;  Clement  XIV. . .  424-441 


Contents  xi 

CHAPTER  XIV 

POMBAL 

Early  life  —  Ambitions  —  Portuguese  Missions  —  Seizure  of        PAGB 
the  Spanish  Reductions.     Expulsion  of  the  Missionaries 

—  End  of  the  Missions  in   Brazil  —  War  against  the 
Society  in  Portugal  —  The  Jesuit  Republic  —  Cardinal 
Saldanha  —  Seizure   of    Churches    and    Colleges  —  The 
Assassination  Plot  —  The  Prisons  —  Exiles  —  Execution 

of  Malagrida 442-477 

CHAPTER  XV 
CHOISEUL 

The  French  Method  —  Purpose  of  the  Enemy  —  Preliminary 
Accusations  —  Voltaire's  testimony  —  La  Vallette  —  La 
Chalotais  —  Seizure  of  Property  —  Auto  da  fe  of  the 
Works  of  Lessius,  Suarez,  Valentia,  etc. —  Appeal  of  the 
French  Episcopacy  —  Christophe  de  Beaumont  — 
Demand  for  a  French  Vicar  — "  Sint  ut  sunt  aut  non  sint  " 

—  Protest  of  Clement  XIII  —  Action  of  Father  La  Croix 
and  the  Jesuits  of  Paris  —  Louis  XV  signs  the  Act  of 
Suppression  —  Occupations  of  dispersed  Jesuits  —  Undis- 
turbed    in     Canada  —  Expelled     from     Louisiana  — 
ChoiseuTs  Colonization  of  Guiana 478-5°3 

CHAPTER  XVI 
CHARLES  III 

The  Bourbon  Kings  of  Spain  —  Character  of  Charles  III  — 
Spanish  Ministries  —  O'Reilly  —  The  Hat  and  Cloak  Riot 

—  Cowardice  of  Charles  —  Tricking  the  monarch  —  The 
Decree  of  Suppression  —  Grief  of  the  Pope  —  His  death 

—  Disapproval  in  France  by  the  Encyclopedists  —  The 
Royal  Secret  —  Simultaneousness  of  the  Suppression  — 

—  Wanderings  of  the  Exiles  —  Pignatelli  —  Expulsion  by 
Tanucci 504-529 

CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  FINAL  BLOW 

Ganganelli  —  Political  plotting  at  the  Election  —  Bernis, 
Aranda,  Aubeterre  —  The  Zelanti  —  Election  of  Clement 
XIV  —  Renewal  of  Jesuit  Privileges  by  the  new  Pope  — 
Demand  of  the  Bourbons  for  a  universal  Suppression  — 
The  Three  Years'  Struggle  —  Fanaticism  of  Charles  III 


xii  Contents 

—  Menaces   of    Schism  —  Moriino  —  Maria    Theresa  —        PAOB 
Spoliations    in    Italy  —  Signing    the    Brief  —  Imprison- 
ment of  Father  Ricci  and  the  Assistants  —  Silence  and 
Submission  of  the  Jesuits  to  the  Pope's  Decree 53O~554 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  INSTRUMENT 

Summary  of  the  Brief  of  Suppression  and  its  Supplementary 

Document 555~576 

CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  EXECUTION 

Seizure  of  the  Gesu  in  Rome  —  Suspension  of  the  Priests  — 
Juridical  Trial  of  Father  Ricci  continued  during  Two 
Years  —  The  Victim's  Death-bed  Statement  —  Admis- 
sion of  his  Innocence  by  the  Inquisitors  —  Obsequies  — 
Reason  of  his  Protracted  Imprisonment  —  Liberation  of 
the  Assistants  by  Pius  VI  —  Receipt  of  the  Brief  outside 
of  Rome  —  Refused  by  Switzerland,  Poland,  Russia  and 
Prussia  —  Read  to  the  Prisoners  in  Portugal  by  Pombal 

—  Denunciation  of  it  by  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  —  Sup- 
pression of  the  Document  by  the  Bishop  of  Quebec  — 
Acceptance  by  Austria  —  Its  Enforcement  in  Belgium  — 
Carroll  at  Bruges  —  Defective  Promulgation  in  Maryland.  577-603 

CHAPTER  XX 
THE  SEQUEL  TO  THE  SUPPRESSION 

Failure  of  the  Papal  Brief  to  give  peace  to  the  Church  — 
Liguori  and  Tanucci  —  Joseph  II  destroying  the  Church 
in  Austria  —  Voltaireanism  in  Portugal  —  Illness  of 
Clement  XIV  —  Death  —  Accusations  of  poisoning  — 
Election  of  Pius  VI  —  The  Synod  of  Pistoia  —  Febron- 
ianism  in  Austria  —  Visit  of  Pius  VI  to  Joseph  II  —  The 
Punctation  of  Ems  —  Spain,  Sardinia,  Venice,  Sicily  in 
opposition  to  the  Pope  —  Political  collapse  in  Spain  — 
Fall  of  Pombal  —  Liberation  of  his  Victims  —  Protest  of 
de  Guzman  —  Death  of  Joseph  II  —  Occupations  of  the 
dispersed  Jesuits  —  The  Theologia  Wiceburgensis  —  Feller 

—  Beauregard's      Prophecy  —  Zaccaria  —  Tiraboschi  — 
Boscovich  —  Missionaries  —  Denunciation   of   the   Sup- 
pression in  the  French  Assembly  —  Slain  in  the  French 
Revolution  —  Destitute  Jesuits  in  Poland  —  Shelter  in 
Russia 604-635 


Contents  xiii 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  RUSSIAN  CONTINGENT 

Frederick  the  Great  and  the  "  Philosophes  "  —  Protection  of        PA  on 
the  Jesuits  —  Death  of  Voltaire  —  Catherine  of  Russia  — 
The  Pour  Colleges  —  The  Empress  at  Polotsk  —  Joseph 
II   at   Mohilew  —  Archetti  —  Baron   Grimm  —  Czernie- 
wicz  and  the  Novitiate  —  Assent  of  Pius  VI  —  Potemkin 

—  Siestrzencewicz  —  General       Congregation  —  Benis- 
lawski  —  "  Approbo;    Approbo  " — Accession    of    former 
Jesuits.     Gruber  and  the  Emperor  Paul  —  Alexander  I 

—  Missions  in  Russia 636-664 

CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  RALLYING 

Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  —  Fathers  of  the  Faith  —  Fusion 

—  Paccanari  —  The    Rupture  —  Exodus     to     Russia  — 
Varin  in  Paris  —  Cloriviere  —  Carroll's  doubts  —  Pigna- 

telli  —  Poirot  in  China  —  Grassi's  Odyssey 665-684 

CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  RESTORATION 

Tragic  death  of  Father  Gruber  —  Fall  of  Napoleon  —  Release 
of  the  Pope  —  The  Society  Re-established  —  Opening  of 
Colleges  —  Cloriviere  —  Welcome  of  the  Society  in  Spain 

—  Repulsed    in    Portugal  —  Opposed    by    Catholics    in 
England  —  Announced  in  America  —  Carroll  —  Fen  wick 

—  Neale 685-715 

CHAPTER  XXIV 
THE  FIRST  CONGREGATION 

Expulsion  from  Russia  —  Petrucci,  Vicar  —  Attempt  to  wreak 

the  Society  —  Saved  by  Consalvi  and  Rozaven 716-733 

CHAPTER  XXV 
A  CENTURY  OF  DISASTER 

Expulsion  from  Holland  —  Trouble  at  Freiburg  —  Expulsion 
and  recall  in  Spain  —  Petits  Seminaires  —  Berryer  — 
Montlosier  —  The  Men's  Sodalities  —  St.  Acheul 
mobbed  —  Fourteen  Jesuits  murdered  in  Madrid  — 
Interment  of  Pombal  —  de  Ravignan's  pamphlet  — 
Veuillot  —  Montalembert  —  de  Bonald  —  Archbishop 
Affre  —  Michelet,  Quinet  and  Cousin  —  Gioberti  — 


xiv  Contents 

Expulsion  from  Austria  —  Kulturkampf  —  Slaughter  of        PAGE 
the  Hostages  in  the  Commune  —  South  America  and 
Mexico  —  Flourishing  Condition  before  the  Outbreak  of 
the  World  War 734-764 

CHAPTER  XXVI 
MODERN  MISSIONS 

During  the  Suppression  —  Roothaan's  appeal  —  South 
America  —  The  Philippines  —  United  States  Indians  — 
De  Smet  —  Canadian  Reservations  —  Alaska  —  British 
Honduras  —  China  —  India  —  Syria  —  Algeria  —  Guinea 

—  Egypt  —  Madagascar  —  Mashonaland  —  Congo  — 
Missions  depleted  by  World  War  —  Actual  number  of 
missionaries 765-824 

CHAPTER  XXVII 
COLLEGES 

Responsibility  of  the  Society  for  loss  of  Faith  in  Europe  — The 
Loi  Falloux  —  Bombay  —  Calcutta  —  Beirut  —  Ameri- 
can Colleges  —  Scientists,  Archaeologists,  Meteorologists, 
Seismologists,  Astronomers  —  Ethnologists 825-854 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LITERATURE 

Grammars  and  Lexicons  of  every  tongue  —  Dramas  —  His- 
tories of  Literature  —  Cartography  —  Sinology  —  Egypt- 
ology —  Sanscrit  —  Catholic  Encyclopedia  —  Catalogues 
of  Jesuit  Writers  —  Acta  Sanctorum  —  Jesuit  Relations 

—  Nomenclator  —  Periodicals  —  Philosophy  —  Dogmatic, 

Moral  and  Ascetic  Theology  —  Canon  Law  —  Exegesis. .   855-890 

CHAPTER  XXIX 
THE  SOVEREIGN  PONTIFFS  AND  THE  SOCIETY 

Devotion,  Trust  and  Affection  of  each  Pope  of  the  Nineteenth 
and  Twentieth  Centuries  manifested  in  his  Official  and 
Personal  Relations  with  the  Society 891-916 

CHAPTER  XXX 
CONCLUSION 

Successive    Generals    in    the    Restored     Society  —  Present 

Membership,  Missions  and  Provinces 9*7-930 


THE  JESUITS 

1534-1921 


WORKS   CONSULTED 

Institutum  Societatis  Jesu. 

JOUVANCY  —  Epitome  historiae  Societatis  Jesu. 

JOUVANCY  — •  Monumenta  Societatis  Jesu. 

CRETINEAU-JOLY  —  Hist,  relig.,  pol.  et  litt.  de  la  Comp.  de  J6sus. 

B.  N. —  The  Jesuits:    their  foundation  and  history. 

ROSA,  I  Gesuiti  dalle  origini  ai  nostri  giorni. 

MESCHLER,  Die  Gesellschaft  Jesu. 

BOHMER-MONOD  —  Les  Jesuites. 

FEVAL,  Les  Jdsuites. 

HUBER  —  Der  Jesuitenorden. 

DUHR  —  Jesuiten-Fabeln. 

BROU  —  Les  Jesuites  et  la  legende. 

BELLOC,  Pascal's  Provincial  Letters. 

FOLEY  — •  Jesuits  in  Conflict. 

FOUQUERAY  — •  Histoire  de  la  compagnie  de  Jesus  en  France. 

BOURNICHON  —  La  Compagnie  de  J6sus  en  France:     1814-1914. 

ALBERS  —  Liber  saecularis  ab  anno  1814  ad  annum  1914. 

TACCHI-VENTURI  —  Storia  della  compagnia  di  Gesu  in  Italia. 

MONTI  — •  La  Compagnia  di  Gesu. 

DUHR  — •  Geschichte  der  Jesuiten  in  den  Landern  deutschen  Zunge. 

KROESS  —  Geschichte  der  bohmischen  Provinz  der  GeseHschaft  Jesu. 

ASTRAIN  —  Hist,  de  la  Comp.  de  Jesus  en  la  asist.  de  Espana. 

HUGHES  —  History  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  of  North  America. 

ALEGRE  —  La  Compama  de  Jesus  en  la  Nueva  Espana. 

FRIAS  —  La  Provincia  de  Espana  de  la  compania  de  Jesus,  1815-63. 

POLLARD  —  The  Jesuits  in  Poland. 

HOGAN  —  Ibernia  Ignatiana. 

TANNER  — •  Societas  Jesu  praeclara. 

Lives  of  Jesuit  Saints. 

Menologies  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

SOUTHWELL  —  Bibliotheca  Scriptorum  Societatis  Jesu. 

SOMMERVOGEL  — •  Bibl.  des  Scrivains  de  la  comp.  de  Jesus. 

CHANDLERY  —  Fasti  breviores  Societatis  Jesu. 

MAYNARD  —  The  Studies  and  Teachings  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

DANIEL  — •  Les  Je'suites  instituteurs. 

WELD  — •  Suppression  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  Portugal. 

DE  RAVIGNAN  —  De  1'existence  et  de  1'institut  des  Jesuites. 

DE  RAVIGNAN  —  Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV. 

THEINER  —  Geschichte  des  Pontifikats  Klemens  XIV. 

ARTAUD  DE  MONTOR  —  Histoire  du  pape  Pie  VII. 


xvi  Works  Consulted 

CARAYON  —  Documents  in6dits  concernants  la  Compagnie  de  Je"sus. 

BERTRAND  —  M6moires  sur  les  missions. 

BROU  —  Les  Missions  du  xixe  siecle. 

SEAMAN  —  Map  of  Jesuit  Missions  in  the  United  States. 

MARSHALL  —  Christian  Missions. 

BANCROFT  —  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States. 

CAMPBELL  —  Pioneer  Priests  of  North  America. 

CHARLEVOIX  —  Histoire  du  Japon. 

CHARLEVOIX  —  Histoire  du  Paraguay. 

CHARLEVOIX  —  Histoire  de  la  Nouvelle-France. 

CRASSET  —  Histoire  de  I'e'glise  du  Japon. 

AVRIL  —  Voyage  en  divers  6tats  d'Europe  et  d'Asie. 

THWAITES  — Jesuit  Relations. 

BOLTON  —  Kino's  Historical  Memoir. 

JANSSEN  —  History  of  the  German  People. 

LAVISSE  —  Histoire  de  Prance. 

RANKE  —  History  of  the  Popes. 

LINGARD  —  History  of  England. 

TlERNEY-DoDD  —  Church  History  of  England. 

POLLEN  —  The  Institution  of  the  Archpriest  Blackwell. 

HAILE-BONNEY  —  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Lingard. 

POLLOCK  —  The  Popish  Plot. 

GUILDAY  —  English  Catholic  Refugees  on  the  Continent. 

MACGEOGHEGAN  — •  History  of  Ireland. 

FLANAGAN  — •  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ireland. 

O'REILLY  —  Lives  of  the  Irish  Martyrs  and  Confessors. 

ROCHEFORT  —  Histoire  des  Antilles. 

EYZAGUIRRE  —  Historia  de  Chile. 

TERTRE  —  Histoire  de  St.  Christophe. 

ROHRBACHER  —  History  of  the  Church. 

HUBNER  — •  Sixte-Quint. 

Hue  —  Christianity  in  China,  Tartary  and  Tibet. 

ROBERTSON  — •  History  of  Charles  V. 

SHEA  —  The  Catholic  Church  in  Colonial  Days. 

PACCA  — •  Memorie  storiche  del  ministero. 

SAINTE-BEUVE  —  Causeries. 

PETIT  DE  JULLEVILLE  —  Histoire  de  la  litte'rature  francaise. 

GODEFROY  —  Litterature  francaise. 

SCHLOSSER  —  History  of  the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth  Centuries, 

CANTU  — •  Storia  universale. 

The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vols.  VIII,  XII. 

The  Month. 

The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  passim. 

The  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  passim. 

Realencyclopadie  fur  protestantische  Theologie  und  Kirche,  passim. 


THE  JESUITS 
1534-1921 

CHAPTER  I 

ORIGIN 

The  Name  —  Opprobrious  meanings  —  Caricatures  of  the  Founder 

—  Purpose   of   the   Order  —  Early   life   of   Ignatius  —  Pampeluna  — 
Conversion  —  Manresa  —  The   Exercises  —  Authorship  —  Journey   to 
Palestine  —  The  Universities  —  Life  in  Paris  —  First  Companions  — 
Montmartre    First    Vows  —  Assembly    at    Venice.     Failure    to   reach 
Palestine  —  First  Journey  to  Rome  —  Ordination  to  the  Priesthood  — 
Labors   in   Italy  —  Submits   the   Constitutions   for   Papal   Approval 

—  Guidiccioni's  opposition  —  Issue  of  the  Bull  Regimini — Sketch   of 
the  Institute  —  Crypto- Jesuits. 

THE  name  "  Jesuit  "  has  usually  a  sinister  meaning  in 
the  minds  of  the  misinformed.  Calvin  is  accused  of 
inventing  it,  but  that  is  an  error.  It  was  in  common 
use  two  or  three  centuries  before  the  Reformation,  and 
generally  it  implied  spiritual  distinction.  Indeed,  in 
his  famous  work  known  as  "  The  Great  Life  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  which  appeared  somewhere  about 
1350,  the  saintly  old  Carthusian  ascetic,  Ludolph  of 
Saxony,  employs  it  in  a  way  that  almost  provokes  a 
smile.  He  tells  his  readers  that  "  just  as  we  are  called 
Christians  when  we  are  baptized,  so  we  shall  be  called 
Jesuits  when  we  enter  into  glory."  Possibly  such  a 
designation  would  be  very  uncomfortable  even  for  some 
pious  people  of  the  present  day.  The  opprobrious 
meaning  of  the  word  came  into  use  at  the  approach 
of  the  Protestant  Reformation.  Thus,  when  laxity  in 
the  observance  of  their  rule  began  to  show  itself  in  the 
once  fervent  followers  of  St.  John  Columbini  —  who 
were  called  Jesuati,  because  of  their  frequent  use  of 


2  The  Jesuits 

the  expression:  "Praised  be  Jesus  Christ" — their 
name  fixed  itself  on  the  common  speech  as  a  synonym 
of  hypocrisy.  Possibly  that  will  explain  the  curious 
question  in  the  "  Examen  of  Conscience  "  in  an  old 
German  prayer-book,  dated  1519,  where  the  penitent 
is  bidden  to  ask  himself:  "  Did  I  omit  to  teach  the 
Word  of  God  for  fear  of  being  called  a  Pharisee,  a 
Jesuit,  a  hypocrite,  a  Beguine?  " 

The  association  of  the  term  Jesuit  with  Pharisee  and 
hypocrite  is  unpleasant  enough,  but  connecting  it  with 
Beguine  is  particularly  offensive.  The  word  Beguine 
had  come  to  signify  a  female  heretic,  a  mysticist,  an 
illuminist,  a  pantheist,  who  though  cultivating  a  saintly 
exterior  was  credited  with  holding  secret  assemblies 
where  the  most  indecent  orgies  were  indulged  in.  The 
identity  of  the  Beguines  with  Jesuits  was  considered 
to  be  beyond  question,  and  one  of  the  earliest  Calvinist 
writers  informed  his  co-religionists  that  at  certain 
periods  the  Jesuits  made  use  of  mysterious  and 
magical  devices  and  performed  a  variety  of  weird 
antics  and  contortions  in  subterraneous  caverns,  from 
which  they  emerged  as  haggard  and  worn  as  if  they 
had  been  struggling  with  the  demons  of  hell  (Janssen, 
Hist,  of  the  German  People,  Eng.  tr.,  IV,  406-7). 
Unhappily,  at  that  time,  a  certain  section  of  the  associ- 
ation of  Beguines  insisted  upon  being  called  Jesuits. 
There  were  many  variations  on  this  theme  when  the 
genuine  Jesuits  at  last  appeared.  In  Germany  they  \ 
were  denounced  as  idolaters  and  libertines,  and  their 
great  leader  Canisius  was  reported  to  have  run  away 
with  an  abbess.  In  France  they  were  considered 
assassins  and  regicides;  Calvin  called  them  la  racaille, 
that  is,  the  rabble,  rifraff,  dregs.  In  England  they 
were  reputed  political  plotters  and  spies.  Later,  in 
America,  John  Adams,  second  President  of  the  United 
States,  identified  them  with  Quakers  and  resolved  to 


Origin  3 

suppress  them.  Cotton  Mather  or  someone  in  Boston 
denounced  them  as  grasshoppers  and  prayed  for  the 
east  wind  to  sweep  them  away;  the  Indians  burned 
them  at  the  stake  as  magicians,  and  the  Japanese 
bonzes  insisted  that  they  were  cannibals,  a  charge 
repeated  by  Charles  Kingsley,  Queen  Victoria's  chap- 
lain, who,  in  "  Westward  Ho,"  makes  an  old  woman 
relate  of  the  Jesuits  first  arriving  in  England  that 
"  they  had  probably  killed  her  old  man  and  salted  him 
for  provision  on  their  journey  to  the  Pope  of  Rome," 
No  wonder  Newman  told  Kingsley  to  fly  off  into  space. 
The  climax  of  calumny  was  reached  in  a  decree  of 
the  Parliament  of  Paris,  issued  on  August  6,  1762. 
It  begins  with  a  prelude  setting  forth  the  motives 
of  the  indictment,  and  declares  that  "  the  Jesuits  are 
recognized  as  guilty  of  having  taught  at  all  times, 
uninterruptedly,  and  with  the  approbation  of  their 
superiors  and  generals,  simony,  blasphemy,  sacrilege, 
the  black  art,  magic,  astrology,  impiety,  idolatry, 
superstition,  impurity,  corruption  of  justice,  robbery, 
parricide,  homicide,  suicide  and  regicide."  The  decree 
then  proceeds  to  set  forth  eighty -four  counts  on  which 
it  finds  them  specifically  guilty  of  supporting  the  Greek 
Schism,  denying  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost; 
of  favoring  the  heresies  of  Arianism,  Sabellianism,  and 
Nestorianism ;  of  assailing  the  hierarchy,  attacking  the 
Mass  and  Holy  Communion  and  the  authority  of  the 
Holy  See;  of  siding  with  the  Lutherans,  Calvinists 
and  other  heretics  of  the  sixteenth  century;  of  repro- 
ducing the  heresies  of  Wycliff  and  the  Pelagians  and 
Semi-Pelagians;  of  adding  blasphemy  to  heresy;  of 
belittling  the  early  Fathers  of  the  Church,  the  Apostles, 
Abraham,  the  prophets,  St.  John  the  Baptist,  the 
angels;  of  insulting  and  blaspheming  the  Blessed 
Virgin;  of  undermining  the  foundations  of  the  Faith; 
destroying  belief  in  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ; 


4  The  Jesuits 

casting  doubt  on  the  mystery  of  the  Redemption; 
encouraging  the  impiety  of  the  Deists^  suggesting 
Epicureanism;  teaching  men  to  live  like  beasts,  and 
Christians  like  pagans  (de  Ravignan,  De  1'existence 
et  de  1'institut  des  Jesuites,  iii). 

This  was  the  contribution  of  the  Jansenists  to 
the  Jesuit  chamber  of  horrors.  It  was  endorsed  by 
the  government  and  served  as  a  weapon  for  the 
atheists  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  destroy  the 
religion  of  France,  and  finally  the  lexicons  of  every 
language  gave  an  odious  meaning  to  the  name  Jesuit. 
A  typical  example  of  this  kind  of  ill-will  may  be 
found  in  the  "  Diccionario  nacional  "  of  Dominguez. 
In  the  article  on  the  Jesuits,  the  writer  informs  the 
world  that  the  Order  was  the  superior  in  learning  to 
all  the  others;  and  produced,  relatively  at  every  period 
of  its  existence  more  eminent  men,  and  devoted  itself 
with  greater  zeal  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  education  of  youth  —  the  primordial  and  sublime 
objects  of  its  Institute.  Nevertheless  its  influence  in 
political  matters,  as  powerful  as  it  was  covert,  its 
startling  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  its  ambitious 
aims,  drew  upon  it  the  shafts  of  envy,  created  terrible 
antagonists  and  implacable  persecutors,  until  the 
learned  Clement  XIV,  the  immortal  Ganganelli, 
suppressed  it  on  July  21,  1773,  for  its  abuses  and  its 
disobedience  to  the  Holy  See.  Why  the  "  learned 
Clement  XIV  "  should  be  described  as  "  immortal  "  for 
suppressing  instead  of  preserving  or,  at  least,  reforming 
an  order  which  the  writer  fancies  did  more  than  all 
the  others  for  the  propagation  of  the  Faith  is  difficult 
to  understand,  but  logic  is  not  a  necessary  requisite 
of  a  lexicon.  "  In  spite  of  their  suppression,"  he 
continues,  "  they  with  their  characteristic  pertinacity 
have  succeeded  in  coming  to  life  again  and  are  at 
present  existing  in  several  parts  of  Europe."  The 


Origin  5 

"  Diccionario "  is  dated,  Madrid,  1849.  In  other 
words,  the  saintly  Pius  VII  performed  a  very  wicked 
act  in  re-establishing  the  Order. 

Of  course  the  founder  of  this  terrible  Society  had  to 
be  presented  to  the  public  as  properly  equipped  for 
the  malignant  task  to  which  he  had  set  himself;  so 
writers  have  vied  with  each  other  in  expatiating  on 
what  they  call  his  complex  individuality.  Thus  a 
German  psychologist  insists  that  the  Order  established 
by  this  Spaniard  was  in  reality  a  Teutonic  creation. 
The  Frenchman  Drumont  holds  that  "  it  is  anti-semi  tic 
in  its  character,"  though  Polanco,  Loyola's  life-long 
secretary,  was  of  Jewish  origin,  as  were  Lainez,  the 
second  General,  and  the  great  Cardinal  Toletus.  A 
third  enthusiast,  Chamberlain,  who  is  English-born, 
dismisses  all  other  views  and  insists  that,  as  Loyola  was 
a  Basque  and  an  Iberian,  he  could  not  have  been  of 
Germanic  or  even  Aryan  descent,  and  he  maintains 
that  the  primitive  traits  of  the  Stone  Age  continually 
assert  themselves  in  his  character.  In  reading  the 
Spiritual  Exercises,  he  says,  "  I  hear  that  mighty  roar 
of  the  cave  bear  and  I  shudder  as  did  the  men  of 
the  diluvial  a"ge,  when  poor,  naked  and  defenceless, 
surrounded  by  danger  day  and  night,  they  trembled  at 
that  voice."  (Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
I.  57°-)  "  If  this  be  true,"  says  Brou  in  "  Les 
Jesuites  et  la  legende,  "  then,  by  following  the  same 
process  of  reasoning,  one  must  conclude  that  as  Xavier 
was  a  Basque,  his  voice  also  was  ursine  and  troglodytic; 
and  as  Faber  was  a  Savoyard,  he  will  have  to  be 
classified  as  a  brachycephalous  homo  alpinus."  Herman 
Miiller,  in  "  Les  Origines  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus" 
claims  the  honor  of  having  launched  an  entirely  novel 
theory  about  Loyola's  personality.  "  The  '  Exercises' 
are  an  amalgam  of  Islamic  gnosticism  and  militant 
Catholicism,"  he  tells  us;  "  but  where  did  Ignatius 


6  The  Jesuits 

» 

become  acquainted  with  these  Mussulmanic  congrega- 
tions? We  have  nothing  positive  on  that  score,  though 
we  know  that  one  day  he  met  a  Moor  on  the  road  and 
was  going  to  run  him  through  with  his  sword.  Then 
too,  there  were  a  great  many  Moors  and  Moriscos  in 
Catalonia,  and  we  must  not  forget  that  Ignatius 
intended  to  go  to  Palestine  to  convert  the  Turks. 
He  must,  therefore,  have  known  them  and  so  have 
been  subject  to  their  influence."  Strange  to  say, 
Muller  feels  aggrieved  that  the  Jesuits  do  not  accept 
this  very  illogical  theory,  which  he  insists  has  nothing 
discreditable  or  dishonoring  in  it. 

Omitting  many  other  authorities,  Vollet  in  "La 
Grande  Encyclopedic  "  (s.  v.  Ignace  de  Loyola,  Saint), 
informs  his  readers  that  "  impartial  history  can  discover 
in  Loyola  numberless  traits  of  fantastic  exaltation, 
morbific  dreaminess,  superstition,  moral  obscurantism, 
fanatical  hatred,  deceit  and  mendacity.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  impossible  not  to  admit  that  he  was  a  man 
of  iron  will,  of  indomitable  perseverance  in  action  and 
in  suffering,  and  unshakeable  faith  in  his  mission;  in 
spite  of  an  ardent  imagination,  he  had  a  penetrating 
intelligence,  and  a  marvelous  facility  in  reading  the 
thoughts  of  men;  he  was  possessed  of  a  gentleness  and 
suppleness  which  permitted  him  to  make  himself  all 
to  all.  Visionary  though  he  was,  he  possessed  in  the 
supreme  degree,  the  genius  of  organization  and  strategy ; 
he  could  create  the  army  he  needed,  and  employ  the 
means  he  had  at  hand  with  prudence  and  circumspec- 
tion. We  can  even  discover  in  him  a  tender  heart, 
easily  moved  to  pity,  to  affection  and  to  self-sacrifice 
for  his  fellow-men."  Michelet  says  he  was  a  combina- 
tion of  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  and  Machiavelli.  Finally 
Victor  Hugo  reached  the  summit  of  the  absurd  when 
he  assured  the  French  Assembly  in  1850  that  "  Ignatius 
was  the  enemy  of  Jesus."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 


Origin  7 

poet  knew  nothing  of  either,  nor  did  many  of  his 
hearers. 

As  far  as  we  are  aware,  St.  Ignatius  never  used  the 
term  Jesuit  at  all.  He  called  his  Order  the  Compania 
de  Jesus,  which  in  Italian  is  Compagnia,  and  in  French, 
Compagnie.  The  English  name  Society,  as  well  as 
the  Latin  Societas,  is  a  clumsy  attempt  at  a  trans- 
lation, and  is  neither  adequate  nor  picturesque. 
Compania  was  evidently  a  reminiscence  of  Loyola's 
early  military  life,  and  meant  to  him  a  battalion  of 
light  infantry,  ever  ready  for  service  in  any  part  of  the 
world.  The  use  of  the  name  Jesus  gave  great  offense. 
Both  on  the  Continent  and  in  England,  it  was 
denounced  as  blasphemous;  petitions  were  sent  to 
kings  and  to  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tribunals  to  have 
it  changed;  and  even  Pope  Sixtus  V  had  signed  a 
Brief  to  do  away  with  it.  Possibly  the  best  apology 
for  it  was  given  by  the  good-natured  monarch,  Henry 
IV,  when  the  University  and  Parliament  of  Paris 
pleaded  with  him  to  throw  his  influence  against  its 
use.  Shrugging  his  shoulders,  he  replied:  "  I  cannot 
see  why  we  should  worry  about  it.  Some  of  my  officers 
are  Knights  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  there  is  an  Order  of 
the  Holy  Trinity  in  the  Church;  and,  in  Paris,  we  have 
a  congregation  of  nuns  who  call  themselves  God's 
Daughters.  Why  then  should  we  object  to  Company 
of  Jesus?" 

The  Spaniards  must  have  been  amazed  at  these 
objections,  because  the  name  Jesus  was,  as  it  still  is, 
in  very  common  use  among  them.  They  give  it  to 
their  children,  and  it  is  employed  as  an  exclamation 
of  surprise  or  fear;  like  Mon  Dieul  in  French.  They 
even  use  such  expressions  as:  Jesu  Cristol  Jesu  tnille 
veces  or  Jesucristo,  Dios  miol  The  custom  is  rather 
startling  for  other  nationalities,  but  it  is  merely  a 
question  of  autre  pays,  autres  mceurs.  A  compromise 


8  The  Jesuits 

was  made,  however,  for  the  time  being,  by  calling  the 
organization  "  The  Society  of  the  Name  of  Jesus," 
but  that  was  subsequently  forbidden  by  the  General. 

As  a  rule  the  Jesuits  do  not  reply  to  these  attacks. 
The  illustrious  Jacob  Gretser  attempted  it  long  ago; 
but,  in  spite  of  his  sanctity,  he  displayed  so  much 
temper  in  his  retort,  that  he  was  told  to  hold  his  peace. 
Such  is  the  policy  generally  adopted,  and  the  Society 
consoles  itself  with  the  reflection  that  the  terrible 
Basque,  Ignatius  Loyola,  and  a  host  of  his  sons  have 
been  crowned  by  the  Universal  Church  as  glorious 
saints;  that  the  august  Council  of  Trent  solemnly 
approved  of  the  Order  as  a  "pious  Institute;"  that 
twenty  or  thirty  successive  Sovereign  Pontiffs  have 
blessed  it  and  favored  it,  and  that  after  the  terrible 
storm  evoked  by  its  enemies  had  spent  its  fury,  one 
of  the  first  official  acts  of  the  Pope  was  to  restore  the 
Society  to  its  ancient  position  in  the  Church.  The 
scars  it  has  received  in  its  numberless  battles  are  not 
disfigurements  but  decorations;  and  Cardinal  Allen, 
who  saw  its  members  at  close  quarters  in  the  bloody 
struggles  of  the  English  Mission,  reminded  them  that 
"to  be  hated  of  the  Heretikes,  S.  Hierom  computeth 
a  great  glorie." 

It  is  frequently  asserted  that  the  Society  was 
organized  for  the  express  purpose  of  combatting  the 
Protestant  Reformation.  Such  is  not  the  case.  On 
the  contrary,  St.  Ignatius  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
aware  of  the  extent  of  the  religious  movement  going 
on  at  that  time.  His  sole  purpose  was  to  convert  the 
Turks,  and  only  the  failure  to  get  a  ship  at  Venice 
prevented  him  from  carrying  out  that  plan.  Indeed  it 
is  quite  likely  that  when  he  first  thought  of  consecrating 
himself  to  God,  not  even  the  name  of  Luther  had,  as 
yet,  reached  Montserrat  or  Manresa.  They  were 
contemporaries,  of  course,  for  Luther  was  born  in 


Origin  9 

1483  and  Loyola  in  1491  or  thereabouts;  and  their 
lines  of  endeavor  were  in  frequent  and  direct  antag- 
onism, but  without  either  being  aware  of  it.  Thus, 
in  1521,  when  Loyola  was  leading  a  forlorn  hope  at 
Pampeluna  to  save  the  citadel  for  Charles  V,  Luther 
was  in  the  castle  of  Wartburg,  plotting  to  dethrone 
that  potentate.  In  1522  when  the  recluse  of  Manresa 
was  writing  his  "  Exercises  "  for  the  purpose  of  making 
men  better,  Luther  was  posing  as  the  Ecclesiast  of 
Wittenberg  and  proclaiming  the  uselessness  of  the  Ten 
Commandments;  and  when  Loyola  was  in  London 
begging  alms  to  continue  his  studies,  Luther  was 
coquetting  with  Henry  VIII  to  induce  that  riotous 
king  to  accept  the  new  Evangel. 

Ignatius  Loyola  was  born  in  the  heart  of  the  Pyre- 
nees, in  the  sunken  valley  which  has  the  little  town  of 
Azcoitia  at  one  end,  and  the  equally  diminutive  one  of 
Azpeitia  at  the  other.  Over  both  of  them  the  Loyolas 
had  for  centuries  been  lords  either  by  marriage  or 
inheritance.  Their  ancestral  castle  still  stands;  but, 
whereas  in  olden  times  it  was  half  hidden  by  the 
surrounding  woods,  it  is  today  embodied  in  the  immense 
structure  which  almost  closes  in  that  end  of  the  valley. 

The  castle  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Society 
through  the  liberality  of  Anne  of  Austria,  and  a  college 
was  built  around  it.  The  added  structure  now  forms 
an  immense  quadrangle  with  four  interior  courts. 
From  the  centre  of  the  fagade  protrudes  the  great 
church  which  is  circular  in  form  and  two  hundred  feet 
in  height.  Its  completion  was  delayed  for  a  long  time 
but  the  massive  pile  is  now  finished.  At  its  side,  but 
quite  invisible  from  without,  is  the  castle  proper, 
somewhat  disappointing  to  those  who  have  formed 
•their  own  conceptions  of  what  castles  were  in  those 
days.  It  is  only  fifty-six  feet  high  and  fifty-eight 
wide.  The  lower  portion  is  of  hewn  stone,  the  upper 


10  The  Jesuits 

part  of  brick.  Above  the  entrance,  the  family 
escutcheon  is  crudely  cut  in  stone,  and  represents  two 
wolves,  rampant  and  lambent,  having  between  them 
a  caldron  suspended  by  a  chain.  This  device  is  the 
heraldic  symbol  of  the  name  Loyola.  The  interior  is 
elaborately  decorated,  and  the  upper  story,  where 
Ignatius  was  stretched  on  his  bed  of  pain  after  the 
disaster  of  Pampeluna,  has  been  converted  into 
an  oratory. 

The  church  looks  towards  Azpeitia.  A  little  stream 
runs  at  the  side  of  the  well-built  road-way  which 
connects  the  two  towns.  Along  its  length,  shrines 
have  been  built,  as  have  shelters  for  travelers  if  over- 
taken by  a  storm.  The  people  are  handsome  and 
dignified,  stately  in  their  carriage — for  they  are  moun- 
taineers —  and  are  as  thrifty  in  cultivating  their  steep 
hills,  which  they  terrace  to  the  very  top,  as  the  Belgians 
are  in  tilling  their  level  fields  in  the  Low  Countries. 
There  is  no  wealth,  but  there  is  no  sordid  poverty; 
and  a  joyous  piety  is  everywhere  in  evidence.  Azpeitia 
glories  in  the  fact  that  there  St.  Ignatius  was  baptized ; 
and  when  some  years  ago,  it  was  proposed  to  remove 
the  font  and  replace  it  by  a  new  one,  the  women  rose 
in  revolt.  Their  babies  had  to  be  made  Christians  in 
the  same  holy  basin  as  their  great  compatriot,  no 
matter  how  old  and  battered  it  might  be. 

Ignatius  was  the  youngest  of  a  family  of  thirteen  or,  at 
least,  the  youngest  of  the  sons;  he  was  christened 
Eneco  or  Inigo,  but  he  changed  his  name  later  to 
Ignatius.  His  early  years  were  spent  in  the  castle  of 
Arevalo;  and,  according  to  Maffei  he  was  at  one  time 
a  page  of  King  Ferdinand.  He  was  fond  of  the  world, 
its  vanities,  its  amusements  and  its  pleasures,  and 
though  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  there  was  ever 
any  serious  violation  of  the  moral  law  in  his  conduct, 
neither  was  he  the  extraordinarily  pious  youth  such 


Origin  11 

as  he  is  represented  in  the  fantastic  stories  of  Nierem- 
berg,  Nolarci,  Garcia,  Henao  and  others.  After  the 
fashion  of  the  hagiographers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
and  later,  they  describe  him  as  a  sort  of  Aloysius  who, 
under  the  tutelage  of  Dona  Maria  de  Guevara,  visited 
the  sick  in  the  hospitals,  regarding  them  as  the  images 
of  Christ,  nursing  them  with  tenderest  charity,  and  so 
on.  All  that  is  pure  imagination  and  an  unwise  attempt 
to  make  a  saint  of  him  before  the  time. 

Indeed,  very  little  about  the  early  life  of  Ignatius 
is  known,  except  that  when  he  was  about  twenty-six 
he  gained  some  military  distinction  in  an  attack  on 
the  little  town  of  Najara.  Of  course,  he  was  conspicu- 
ous in  the  fight  at  Pampeluna,  but  whether  he  was  in 
command  of  the  fortress  or  had  been  merely  sent  to 
its  rescue  to  hold  it  until  the  arrival  of  the  Viceroy 
is  a  matter  of  conjecture.  At  all  events,  even  after 
the  inhabitants  had  agreed  to  surrender  the  town,  he 
determined  to  continue  the  fight.  He  first  made  his 
confession  to  a  fellow-knight,  for  there  was  no  priest 
at  hand,  and  then  began  what  was,  at  best,  a  hopeless 
struggle.  The  enemy  soon  made  a  breach  in  the  walls 
and  while  rallying  his  followers  to  repel  the  assault 
he  was  struck  by  a  cannon-ball  which  shattered  one 
leg  and  tore  the  flesh  from  the  other.  That  ended  the 
siege,  and  the  flag  of  the  citadel  was  hauled  down. 
Admiring  his  courage,  the  French  tenderly  carried  him 
to  Loyola,  where  for  some  time  his  life  was  despaired 
of.  The  crisis  came  on  the  feast  of  St.  Peter,  to  whom 
he  had  always  a  special  devotion.  From  that  day,  he 
began  to  grow  better.  Loyalty  to  the  Chair  of  Peter 
is  one  of  the  distinguishing  traits  of  the  Compania 
which  he  founded. 

It  is  almost  amusing  to  find  these  shattered  limbs 
of  Ignatius  figuring  in  the  diatribes  of  the  elder  Arnauld 
against  the  Society,  sixty  or  seventy  years  after  the 


12  The  Jesuits 

siege.  "  The  enmity  of  the  Jesuits  for  France,"  he 
said,  "is  to  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  Loyola  took  an 
oath  on  that  occasion,  as  Hannibal  did  against  Rome, 
to  make  France  pay  for  his  broken  legs."  An  English 
Protestant  prelate  also  bemoaned  "  the  ravages  that 
had  been  caused  by  the  fanaticism  of  that  lame 
soldier."  Other  examples  might  be  cited.  To  beguile 
the  tediousness  of  his  convalescence,  Ignatius  asked 
for  the  romance  "  Amadis  de  Gaul,"  a  favorite  book 
with  the  young  cavaliers  of  the  period;  but  he  had  to 
content  himself  with  the  "  Life  of  Christ  "  and  "  The 
Flowers  of  the  Saints."  These,  however,  proved  to  be 
of  greater  service  than  the  story  of  the  mythical  Amadis ; 
for  the  reading  ended  in  a  resolution  which  exerted  a 
mighty  influence  in  the  history  of  humanity.  Ignflatitfe 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  do  something  for  God.  The 
"  Life  of  Christ  "  which  he  read,  appears  to  have  been 
that  of  Ludolph  of  Saxony  in  which  the  name  "  Jesuit  " 
occurs.  It  had  been  translated  into  Spanish  and 
published  at  Alcala  as  early  as  1502.  Thus,  a  book 
from  the  land  of  Martin  Luther  helped  to  make  Ignatius 
Loyola  a  saint. 

When  sufficiently  restored  to  health  he  set  out  for 
the  sanctuary  of  Montserrat  where  there  is  a  Madonna 
whose  thousandth  anniversary  was  celebrated  a  few 
years  ago.  It  is  placed  over  the  main  altar  of  the 
church  of  a  Benedictine  monastery,  which  stands 
three  thousand  feet  above  the  dark  gorge,  through 
which  the  river  Llobregat  rushes  head-long  to  the 
Mediterranean.  You  can  get  a  glimpse  of  the  blue 
expanse  of  the  sea  in  the  distance,  from 'the  monastery 
windows.  Before  this  statue,  Ignatius  kept  his  romantic 
Vigil  of  Arms,  like  the  warriors  of  old  on  the  eve  of 
their  knighthood;  for  he  was  about  to  enter  upon  a 
spiritual  warfare  for  the  King  of  Kings.  He  remained 
in  prayer  at  the  shrine  all  night  long,  not  however  in 


Origin  13 

the  apparel  of  a  cavalier  but  in  the  common  coarse 
garb  of  a  poverty-stricken  pilgrim.  From  there  he 
betook  himself  to  the  little  town  of  Manresa,  about 
three  miles  to  the  north,  on  the  outskirts  of  which  is 
the  famous  cave  where  he  wrote  the  "  Spiritual  Exer- 
cises." It  is  in  the  face  of  the  rock,  so  low  that  you 
can  touch  the  roof  with  your  hand,  and  so  nacrow  that 
there  is  room  for  only  a  little  altar  at  one  end.  Possibly 
it  had  once  been  the  repair  of  wild  beasts.  Jt  is  a 
mistake,  however,  to  imagine  that  he  passed  all  his 
time  there.  He  lived  either  in  the  hospital  or  in  the 
house  of  some  friend,  and  resorted  to  the  cave  to 
meditate  and  do  penance  for  his  past  sins.  At  present 
it  is  incorporated  in  a  vast  edifice  which  the  Spanish 
Jesuits  have  built  above  and  around  it. 

Perhaps  no  book  has  ever  been  written  that  has 
evoked  more  ridiculous  commentaries  on  its  contents 
and  its  purpose  than  this  very  diminutive  volume 
known  as  "  The  Spiritual  Exercises  of  St.  Ignatius." 
Its  very  simplicity  excites  suspicion;  its  apparent 
jejuneness  suggest  all  sorts  of  mysterious  and  malignant 
designs.  Yet,  as  a  "matter  of  fact,  it  is  nothing  but  a 
guide  to  Christian  piety  and  devotion.  It  begins 
with  the  consideration  of  the  great  fundamental 
truths  of  religion,  such  as  our  duty  to  God,  the  hide- 
ousness  and  heinousness  of  sin,  hell,  death,  and  judg- 
ment on  which  the  exercitant  is  expected  to  meditate 
before  asking  himself  if  it  is  wise  for  a  reasonable 
creature  who  must  soon  die  to  continue  in  rebellion 
against  the  Almighty.  No  recourse  is  had  to  rhetoric 
or  oratory  by  those  who  direct  others  in  these  "  Exer- 
cises," not  even  such  as  would  be  employed  in  the 
pulpit  by  the  ordinary  parish  preacher.  It  is  merely 
a  matter  of  a  man  having  a  heart  to  heart  talk  with 
himself.  If  he  makes  up  his  mind  to  avoid  mortal  sin 
in  the  future,  but  to  do  no  more,  then  his  retreat  is 


14  The  Jesuits 

over  as  far  as  he  is  concerned.     But  to  have  even 
reached  that  point  is  to  have  accomplished  much. 

There  are,  however,  in  the  world  a  great  many  people 
who  desire  something  more  than  the  mere  avoidance 
of  mortal  sin.  To  them  the  "  Excercises  "  propose 
over  and  above  the  fundamental  truths  just  mentioned 
the  study  of  the  life  of  Christ  as  outlined  in  the  Gospels. 
This  outline  is  not  filled  in  by  the  director  of  the  retreat, 
at  least  to  any  great  extent.  That  is  left  to  the  exer- 
citant;  for  the  word  exercise  implies  personal  action. 
Hence  he  is  told  to  ask  himself:  "Who  is  Christ?  Why 
does  He  do  this?  Why  does  He  avoid  that?  What  do 
His  commands  and  example  suppose  or  suggest?" 
In  other  words,  he  is  made  to  do  some  deep  personal 
thinking,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  at  least 
on  such  serious  subjects.  Inevitably  his  thoughts  will 
be  introspective  and  he  will  inquire  why  the  patience, 
the  humility,  the  meekness,  the  obedience  and  other 
virtues,  which  are  so  vivid  in  the  personality  of  the 
Ideal  Man,  are  so  weak  or  perhaps  non-existent  in  his 
own  soul.  This  scrutiny  of  the  conscience,  which  is 
nothing  but  self-knowledge,  is  one  of  the  principal 
exercises,  for  it  helps  us  to  discover  what  perhaps 
never  before  struck  us,  namely  that  down  deep  in  our 
natures  there  are  tendencies,  inclinations,  likes,  dislikes, 
affections,  passions  which  most  commonly  are  the 
controlling  and  deciding  forces  of  nearly  all  of  our  acts ; 
and  that  some  of  these  tendencies  or  inclinations  help, 
while  others  hinder,  growth  in  virtue.  Those  that 
do  not  help,  but  on  the  contrary  impede  or  prevent, 
our  spiritual  progress  are  called  by  St.  Ignatius 
inordinate  affections,  that  is  tendencies,  which  are 
out  of  order,  which  do  not  go  straight  for  the  com- 
pleteness and  perfection  of  a  man's  character,  but  on 
the  contrary,  lead  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  well- 
balanced  mind  will  fight  against  such  tendencies,  so  as 


Origin  15 

to  be  able  to  form  its  judgments  and  decide  on  its 
course  of  action  both  in  the  major  and  minor  things 
of  life  without  being  moved  by  the  pressure  or  strain 
or  weight  of  the  passions.  It  will  look  at  facts  in  the 
cold  light  of  reason  and  revealed  truth,  and  will  then 
bend  every  energy  to  carry  out  its  purpose  of  spiritual 
advancement. 

Such  is  not  the  view  of  those  who  write  about  the 
"  Exercises  "  without  knowledge  or  who  are  carried 
away  by  prejudice,  an  exalted  imagination,  an  over- 
whelming conceit  or  religious  bias  or  perhaps  because 
of  a  refusal  to  recognize  the  existence  of  any  spiritual 
element  in  humanity.  It  is  difficult  to  persuade 
such  men  that  there  are  no  "  mysterious  devices  " 
resorted  to  in  the  Exercises;  no  "  subterraneous 
caverns,"  no  "  orgies,"  no  "  emerging  livid  and  haggard 
from  the  struggle,"  no  "  illuminism,"  no  "  monoideism" 
as  William  James  in  his  cryptic  English  describes 
them;  no  "  phantasmagoria  or  illusions;"  no  "  plotting 
of  assassinations  "  as  the  Parliament  of  Paris  pretended 
to  think  when  examining  Jean  Chastel,  who  had 
attempted  the  life  of  Henry  IV;  no  "  Mahommedanism" 
as  Muller  fancies  in  his  "  Origins  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,"  nothing  but  a  calm  and  quiet  study  of  one's 
self,  which  even  pagan  philosophers  and  modern  poets 
assure  us  is  the  best  kind  of  worldly  occupation. 

Even  if  some  writers  insist  that  "  their  excellence 
is  very  much  exaggerated,"  that  they  are  "  dull  and 
ordinary  and  not  the  dazzling  masterpieces  they  are 
thought  to  be,"  or  are  "  a  Japanese  culture  of  counter- 
feited dwarf  trees,"  as  Huysmans  in  his  "  En  Route  " 
describes  them;  yet  on  the  other  hand  they  have, 
been  praised  without  stint  by  such  competent  judges 
as  Saints  Philip  Neri,  Charles  Borromeo,  Francis  de 
Sales,  Alphonsus  Liguori,  Leonard  of  Port  Maurice, 
and  by  Popes  Paul  III,  Alexander  VII,  Clement 


16  The  Jesuits 

XIII,  Pius  IX  and  Leo  XIII.  Camus,  the  friend  of 
St.  Francis  of  Sales,  thought  "  they  were  of  pure  gold; 
more  precious  than  gold  or  topaz;"  -  Freppel  calls 
them  "  a  wonderful  work  which,  with  the  '  Imitation 
of  Christ '  is  perhaps  of  all  books  the  one  which  gains 
the  most  souls  for  God;"  Wiseman  compares  the 
volume  to  "an  apparently  barren  soil  which  is  found 
to  contain  the  richest  treasures,"  and  Janssen  tells 
us  that  "  the  little  book  which  even  its  opponents 
pronounced  to  be  a  psychological  masterpiece  of  the 
highest  class,  ranks  also  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
and  influential  products  of  later  centuries  in  the  field 

of  religion  and  culture  in  Germany As  a  guide 

to  the  exercises  it  has  produced  results  which  scarcely 
any  other  ascetic  writings  can  boast  of  "  (Hist,  of  the 
German  People,  VIII,  223). 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  it,  it  is  the  Jesuit's 
manual,  the  vade  mecum,  on  wrhich  he  moulds  his 
particular  and  characteristic  form  of  spirituality.  In 
the  novitiate,  he  goes  through  these  "  Exercises  "  for 
thirty  consecutive  days;  and  shortly  after  he  becomes 
a  priest,  he  makes  them  once  again  for  the  same  period. 
Moreover,  all  Jesuits  are  bound  by  rule  to  repeat  them 
in  a  condensed  form  for  eight  days  every  year;  and 
during  the  summer  months  the  priests  are  generally 
employed  in  explaining  them  to  the  clergy  and  religious 
communities.  Indeed  the  use  has  become  so  general 
in  the  Church  at  the  present  time,  that  houses  have 
been  opened  where  laymen  can  thus  devote  a  few  days 
to  a  study  of  their  souls.  Even  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs 
themselves  employ  them  as  a  means  of  spiritual 
advancement.  Thus  we  find  in  the  press  of  today  the 
announcement,  as  of  an  ordinary  event,  that  "  in  the 
Vatican,  the  Spiritual  Exercises  which  began  on  Sunday, 
September  26,  1920,  and  ended  on  October  2,  were 
followed  by  His  Holiness,  Benedict  XV,  with  the 


Origin  17 

prelates  and  ecclesiastics  of  his  Court;  during  which 
time,  all  public  audiences  were  suspended.  After  the 
retreat,  the  two  directors  and  those  who  had  taken 
part  in  it  were  presented  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff, 
who  pronounced  a  glowing  eulogy  of  what  he  called  the 
'  Holy  '  Exercises." 

St.  Ignatius'  authorship  of  these  "  Exercises  "  has 
been  frequently  challenged,  and  they  have  been  de- 
scribed as  little  else  than  a  plagiarism  of  the  book 
known  as  the  "  Ejercitatorio  de  la  vida  espiritual," 
which  was  given  to  him  by  the  Benedictines  of  Mont- 
serrat.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  he  had  that  book  in 
his  hands  during  all  the  time  he  was  at  Manresa,  and 
that  he  went  every  week  to  confession  to  Dom  Chan- 
ones,  who  was  a  monk  of  Montserrat,  but  there  are 
very  positive  differences  between  the  "  Ejercitatorio  " 
and  the  "  Spiritual  Exercises." 

In  the  first  place  it  should  be  noted  that  the  title  had 
been  in  common  use  long  before,  and  was  employed 
by  the  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life,  to  designate 
any  of  their  pious  publications.  Even  Ludolph  of 
Saxony  speaks  of  the  "  Studia  spiritualis  exercitii." 
Secondly,  the  "  Ejercitatorio  "  is  rigid  in  its  divisions 
of  three  weeks  of  seven  days  each,  whereas  St.  Ignatius 
takes  the  weeks  in  a  metaphorical  sense,  and  lengthens 
or  shortens  them  at  pleasure.  Thirdly,  the  object  of 
the  Benedictine  manual  is  to  lead  the  exercitant 
through  the  purgative  and  illuminative  life  up  to  the 
unitive ;  whereas  St.  Ignatius  aims  chiefly  at  the  election 
of  that  state  of  life  which  is  most  pleasing  to  God,  or 
at  least  at  the  correction  or  betterment  of  the  one  in 
which  we  happen  to  be.  Finally,  the  "  Ejercitatorio  " 
does  not  even  mention  the  foundation,  the  Kingdom, 
the  particular  examen,  the  Two  Standards,  the  election, 
the  discernment  of  spirits,  the  rules  for  orthodox 
thinking,  the  regulation  of  diet,  the  three  degrees  of 


18  The  Jesuits 

humility,  the  three  classes  or  the  three  methods  of 
prayer.  Only  a  few  of  the  Benedictine  counsels  have 
been  adopted,  as  in  Annotations  2,  4,  13,  18,  19  and 
20.  Some  of  thoughts,  indeed,  are  similar  in  the  first 
week;  but  the  three  succeeding  weeks  of  St.  Ignatius 
are  entirely  his  own .  In  any  case,  the  "  Ejercitatorio  " 
itself  is  nothing  else  than  a  compilation  from  Ludolph, 
Gerson,  Cassian,  Saint  Bernard,  Saint  Bonaventure 
and  contemporary  writers.  (Debuchy,  article  "  Spirit- 
ual Exercises  of  Saint  Ignatius  "  in  the  "  Catholic 
Encyclopedia,"  XIV,  226.) 

It  would  be  much  easier  to  find  a  source  of  the 
"  Exercises "  in  "  The  Great  Life  of  Christ "  by 
Ludolph  of  Saxony,  which  as  has  been  said,  was  one 
of  the  books  read  by  Ignatius  in  his  convalescence. 
It  is  not  really  a  life  but  a  series  of  meditations,  and 
in  it  we  find  a  number  of  things  which  are  supposed 
to  be  peculiar  to  the  Exercises  of  St.  Ignatius,  for 
instance,  the  composition  of  place,  the  application  of 
the  senses  and  the  colloquies.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  nothing  of  the  "  first  week  "  in  it,  such  as 
the  end  of  man,  the  use  of  creatures,  sin,  hell,  death, 
judgment,  etc.,  besides  many  other  things  which  are 
employed  as  "  Exercises  "  in  the  book  of  Ignatius. 

It  will  be  a  surprise  to  many  to  learn  that  the  famous 
meditation  of  the  "  Kingdom  "  which  is  supposed  to 
be  particularly  Ignatian  is  only  an  adaptation.  Father 
Kreiten,  S.  J.,  writing  in  the  "  Stimmen  "  traces  it  to 
a  well-known  romance  which  had  long  been  current 
in  the  tales  of  chivalry,  but  which,  unfortunately,  is 
linked  with  a  name  most  abhorrent  to  Catholics; 
William  of  Orange.  The  medieval  William,  however, 
is  in  no  way  identified  with  his  modern  homonym. 
He  was  a  devoted  Knight  of  the  Cross,  indignant  that 
his  prowess  had  not  been  recognized  by  his  king  and  he 
asked  for  some  royal  fief  as  his  reward.  "  Give  me 


Origin  19 

Spain,"  he  cries,  "  which  is  still  in  the  power  of  the 
Saracens."  The  curious  request  is  granted,  whereupon 
William  springs  upon  the  table  and  shouts  to  those 
around  him:  "  Listen,  noble  knights  of  France!  By  the 
Lord  Almighty!  I  can  boast  of  possessing  a  fief  larger 
than  that  of  thirty  of  my  peers,  but  as  yet  it  is  uncon- 
quered.  Therefore  I  address  myself  to  poor  knights,who 
have  only  a  limping  horse  and  ragged  garments ;  and  I 
say  to  them  that  if,  up  to  now,  they  have  gained  nothing 
for  their  service,  I  will  give  them  money,  lands  and 
Spanish  horses,  castles  and  fortresses,  if  together 
with  me,  they  will  brave  the  fortunes  of  war,  in  order, 
to  help  me  to  effect  the  conquest  of  the  country  and 
to  reestablish  in  it  the  true  religion.  I  make  the  same 
offer  to  poor  squires,  proposing,  moreover,  to  arm 
them  as  knights."  In  answer  to  these  words  all  exclaim 
"By  the  Lord  Almighty!  Sir  William!  haste  thee, 
haste  thee;  he  who  cannot  follow  thee  on  horseback, will 
bear  thee  company  on  foot."  From  all  parts  there 
crowded  to  him  knights  and  squires  with  any  arms 
they  could  lay  hold  of,  and  before  long  thirty  thousand 
men  were  ready  to  march.  They  swore  fealty  to 
Count  William  and  promised  never  to  abandon  him, 
though  they  should  be  cut  to  pieces.  St.  Ignatius 
applies  this  legend  to  Christ  in  the  "  Exercises  ". 

Finally,  the  "  Two  Standards  "  is  a  picture  of  those 
who  want  to  do  more  than  obey  the  Commandments. 
Their  "  Captain,"  the  Divine  Redeemer,  reveals  to 
them  the  wiles  of  the  foe,  which  they  resolve  to  defeat. 

What  is  emphatically  distinctive  in  the  "  Exercises  " 
is  their  coherence.  With  inexorable  logic,  each  con- 
clusion is  deduced  from  what  has  been  antecedently 
admitted  as  indisputable.  Thus,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  "  week  ",  it  is  clear  that  mortal  sin  is  an  act  or 
condition  of  supreme  folly;  and  in  the  course  of  the 
second,  third,  and  fourth,  we  are  made  to  see  that 


20  The  Jesuits 

unless  a  man  chooses  that  particular  state  of  life  to 
which  God  calls  him,  or  unless  he  puts  to  rights  the 
one  he  is  already  in,  he  has  no  character,  no  courage, 
no  virility,  no  gratitude  to  God,  and  no  sense  of  danger. 
The  fourth  "  week  ",  besides  enforcing  what  preceded, 
may  be  regarded  as  intimating,  though  not  developing, 
the  higher  mysticism, 

Throughout  the  "  Exercises,"  the  insistent  considera- 
tion of  the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity,  and  the 
contemplation  of  the  mysteries  or  episodes  of  the  life 
of  Christ  so  illumine  the  mind  and  inflame  the  heart 
that  we  cannot  fail,  if  we  are  reasonable,  at  least  to 
desire  to  make  the  love  of  Christ  the  dominating 
motive  of  our  life;  and,  in  view  of  that  end,  we  are 
given  at  every  step  a  new  insight  into  our  duties  to 
God,  chiefly  under  the  double  aspect  of  our  Creation 
and  Redemption;  we  are  taught  to  scrutinize  our 
thoughts,  tendencies,  inclinations,  passions  and  aspira- 
tions, and  to  detect  the  devices  of  self-deceit;  we  are 
shown  the  dangers  that  beset  us  and  the  means  of 
safety  that  are  available;  we  are  instructed  in  prayer, 
meditation  and  self-examination.  The  proper  co-ordi- 
nation of  these  various  parts  is  so  essential,  that  if 
their  interdependence  is  neglected,  if  the  arrangements 
and  adjustments  are  disturbed  and  the  connecting 
links  disregarded  or  displaced,  the  end  intended  by 
Saint  Ignatius  is  defeated.  Hence  the  need  of  a 
director.  It  may  be  noted  that  the  "Exercises" 
were  not  produced  at  Manresa  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  them  now.  They  were  touched  and  retouched 
up  to  the  year  1541,  that  is  twenty  years  after  Loyola's 
stay  in  the  "  Cueva ",  but  they  are  substantially 
identical  with  the  book  he  then  wrote. 

After  spending  about  a  year  in  the  austerities  of  the 
Cave,  Ignatius  begged  his  way  to  Palestine,  but 
remained  there  only  six  weeks.  The  Guardian  of  the 


Origin  21 

Holy  Places  very  peremptorily  insisted  upon  his 
withdrawal,  because  his  piety  and  his  inaccessibility 
to  fear  exposed  him  to  bad  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
the  infidels.  He  then  returned  to  Spain  and  set  himself 
to  the  study  of  the  Latin  elements,  in  a  class  of  small 
boys,  at  one  of  the  primary  schools  of  Barcelona. 
It  was  a  rude  trial  for  a  man  of  his  years  and  anteced- 
ents, but  he  never  shrank  from  a  difficulty,  and, 
moreover,  there  was  no  other  available  way  of  getting 
ready  for  the  course  of  philosophy  which  he  proposed 
to  follow  at  Alcala.  At  this  latter  place,  he  had  the 
happiness  of  meeting  Lainez,  Salmeron  and  Bobadilla, 
but  he  also  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  jails  of  the 
Inquisition,  where  he  was  held  prisoner  for  forty-two 
days,  on  suspicion  of  heresy,  besides  being  kept  under 
surveillance,  from  November,  1526,  till  June  of  the  year 
following.  It  happened,  also,  that  as  he  was  being 
dragged  through  the  streets  to  jail,  a  brilliant  cavalcade 
met  the  mob,  and  inquiries  were  made  as  to  what  it 
was  all  about,  and  who  the  prisoner  was.  The  cavalier 
who  put  the  question  was  one  who  was  to  be  later  a 
devoted  follower  of  Ignatius ;  he  was  no  less  a  personage 
than  Francis  Borgia.  Six  years  after  the  establishment 
of  the  Society,  Ignatius  repaid  Alcald  for  its  harsh 
treatment,  by  founding  a  famous  college  there,  whose 
chairs  were  filled  by  such  teachers  as  Vasquez  and 
Suarez. 

Ignatius  had  no  better  luck  at  Salamanca.  There 
he  was  not  even  allowed  to  study,  but  was  kept  in 
chains  for  three  weeks  while  being  examined  as  to 
his  orthodoxy.  But  as  with  Alcala,  so  with  Salamanca. 
Later  on  he  founded  a  college  in  that  university  also, 
and  made  it  illustrious  by  giving  it  de  Lugo,  Suarez, 
Valencia,  Maldonado,  Ribera  and  a  host  of  other 
distinguished  teachers.  Leaving  Salamanca,  Ignatius 
began  his  journey  to  Paris,  travelling  on  foot,  behind 


22  The  Jesuits 

a  little  burro  whose  only  burden  were  the  books  of  the 
driver.  It  was  mid-winter;  war  had  been  declared 
between  France  and  Spain,  and  he  had  to  beg  for 
food  on  the  way;  but  nothing  could  stop  him,  and  he 
arrived  at  Paris  safe  and  sound,  in  the  beginning  of 
February,  1528.  In  1535  he  received  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Arts,  after  "  the  stony  trial,"  as  it  was 
called,  namely  the  most  rigorous  examination. 
For  some  time  previously  he  had  devoted  himself  to 
the  study  of  theology,  but  ill  health  prevented  him 
from  presenting  himself  for  the  doctorate.  He  lived 
at  the  College  of  Ste  Barbe  where  his  room-mates 
were  Peter  Faber  and  Francis  Xavier.  Singularly 
enough  and  almost  prophetic  of  the  future,  Calvin  had 
studied  at  the  same  college.  The  names  of  Loyola  and 
Calvin  are  cut  on  the  walls  of  the  building  to-day. 
In  1533  Calvin,  it  is  said,  came  back  to  induce  the 
rector  of  the  college,  a  Doctor  Kopp,  to  embrace  the 
new  doctrines.  He  succeeded,  and,  before  the  whole 
university,  Kopp  declared  himself  a  Calvinist.  Calvin 
had  prepared  the  way  by  having  the  city  placarded 
with  a  blasphemous  denunciation  of  the  Blessed 
Eucharist.  A  popular  uprising  followed  and  Calvin 
fled.  In  reparation  a  solemn  procession  of  reparation 
was  organized  on  January  21,  1535.  There  is  some 
doubt,  however,  about  the  authenticity  of  this  story. 
Ignatius  encountered  trouble  in  France  as  he  had 
in  Spain.  On  one  occasion  he  was  sentenced  to  be 
flogged  in  presence  of  all  the  students;  but  the  rector 
of  the  college,  after  examining  the  charge  against  him, 
publicly  apologized.  There  was  also  a  delation  to  the 
Inquisition,  but  when  he  demanded  an  immediate 
trial  he  was  told  that  the  indictment  had  been  quashed. 
Previous  to  these  humiliations  and  exculpations  he 
had  gathered  around  him  a  number  of  brilliant  young 
men,  all  of  whom  have  made  their  mark  on  history. 


Origin  23 

They  afford  excellent  material  for  an  exhaustive  study 
of  the  psychology  of  the  Saints. 

Most  conspicuous  among  them  was  Francis  Xavier, 
who  will  ever  be  the  wonder  of  history.  With  him  were 
Lainez  and  Salmeron,  soon  to  be  the  luminaries  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  the  former  of  whom  barely  escaped 
being  elevated  to  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  and  then  only 
by  fleeing  Rome.  There  was  also  Bobadilla,  the 
future  favorite  of  kings  and  princes  and  prelates, 
the  idol  of  the  armies  of  Austria,  the  tireless  apostle 
who  evangelised  seventy-seven  dioceses  of  Europe, 
but  who  unfortunately  alienated  Charles  V  from  the 
Society  by  imprudently  telling  him  what  should  have 
come  from  another  source  or  in  another  way.  There 
was  Rodriguez  who  was  to  hold  Portugal,  Brazil  and 
India  in  his  hands,  ecclesiastically;  and  Faber  who  was 
to  precede  Canisius  in  the  salvation  of  Germany. 

Each  one  of  these  remarkable  men  differed  in  char- 
acter from  the  rest.  Bobadilla,  Salmeron,  Lainez  and 
Xavier  were  Spaniards;  but  the  blue-blooded  and 
somewhat  "  haughty  "  Xavier  must  have  been  tempted 
to  look  with  disdain  on  a  man  with  a  Jewish  strain  like 
Lainez.  Salmeron  was  only  a  boy  of  about  nineteen,  but 
already  marvelously  learned;  and  Bobadilla  was  an 
impecunious  professor  whom  Ignatius  had  helped  to 
gain  a  livelihood  in  Paris,  but  whose  ebulliency  of 
temper  was  a  continued  source  of  anxiety;  Rodriguez 
was  a  man  of  velleities  rather  than  of  action,  and  his 
ideas  of  asceticism  were  in  conflict  with  those  of 
Ignatius.  The  most  docile  of  all  was  the  Savoyard 
Peter  Faber,  who  began  life  as  a  shepherd  boy  and  was 
already  far  advanced  in  sanctity  when  he  met  St. 
Ignatius.  In  spite,  however,  of  all  this  divergency  of 
traits  and  antecedent  environment,  the  wonderful 
personality  of  their  leader  exerted  its  undisputed 
sway  over  them  all,  not  by  a  rigid  uniformity  of  direc- 


24  The  Jesuits 

tion,  but  by  an  adaptation  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
each.  His  profound  knowledge  of  their  character, 
coupled  as  it  was  with  an  intense  personal  affection 
for  them,  was  so  effective  that  the  proud  aloofness 
of  Xavier,  the  explosiveness  of  Bobadilla,  the  latent 
persistency  of  Lainez,  the  imaginativeness  and  hesi- 
tancy of  Rodriguez,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  boyish 
Salmeron,  and  the  sweetness  of  Faber,  all  paid  him 
the  tribute  of  the  sincerest  attachment  and  an  eagerness 
to  follow  his  least  suggestion.  Rodriguez  was  the  sole 
exception  in  the  latter  respect,  but  he  failed  only 
twice.  Two  other  groups  of  young  men  had  previously 
gathered  around  Ignatius,  but,  one  by  one,  they 
deserted  him.  All  of  the  last  mentioned  persevered, 
and  became  the  foundation-stones  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus. 

On  August  15,  1534,  Ignatius  led  his  companions  to 
a  little  church  on  the  hill  of  Montmartre,  then  a  league 
outside  the  city,  but  now  on  the  Rue  Antoinette,  below 
the  present  great  basilica  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  In  its 
crypt  which  they  apparently  had  all  to  themselves 
that  morning,  they  pronounced  their  vows  of  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience.  Faber,  the  only  priest  among 
them,  said  Mass  and  gave  them  communion.  Such 
was  the  beginning  of  the  new  Order  in  the  Church. 
A  brass  plate  on  the  wall  of  the  chapel  proclaims  it 
to  be  the  "  cradle  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  It  is 
almost  startling  to  recall  that  while  in  the  University 
of  Paris,  not  only  Ignatius  but  also  Francis  Xavier  and 
Peter  Faber,  who  were  to  be  so  prominent  in  the  world 
in  a  short  time,  were  in  destitute  circumstances.  They 
had  no  money  even  to  pay  for  their  lodging,  and  they 
occupied  a  single  room  which  had  been  given  them, 
out  of  charity,  in  one  of  the  towers  of  Ste  Barbe.  It 
was  providential,  however,  for  in  the  same  college,  but 
paying  his  way,  was  a  former  schoolmate  of  Faber 


Origin  25 

and  like  him  a  native  of  Savoy.  This  was  Claude  Le 
Jay,  or  Jay,  as  he  is  sometimes  called.  Of  course  he 
had  noticed  Ignatius  and  the  group  of  brilliant  young 
Spaniards,  but  he  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
them  until  once,  when  Ignatius  was  absent  in  Spain, 
Faber  let  him  into  the  secret  of  their  great  plan  of 
converting  the  Turks.  The  result  was  that  when  next 
year  the  associates  went  out  to  Montmartre  to  renew 
their  vows,  Le  Jay  was  with  them  as  were  also  two 
other  university  men :  Jean  Codure  from  Dauphine  and 
the  Picard,  Pasquier  Brouet,  who  was  already  a  priest. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  in  1536  when  their  courses 
of  study  were  finished  and  their  degrees  and  certificates 
secured,  they  were  to  meet  at  Venice  to  eiribark  for 
the  Holy  Land.  They  were  to  make  the  journey  to 
Venice  on  foot.  They  set  out,  therefore,  in  two  bands, 
a  priest  with  each,  taking  the  route  that  passed  by 
Meaux  and  then  through  Lorraine,  across  Switzerland 
to  Venice.  It  was  a  daring  journey  of  fifty-two  days 
in  the  dead  of  winter,  over  mountain  passes,  without 
money  to  pay  their  way  or  to  purchase  food;  with 
poor  and  insufficient  clothing,  across  countries  filled 
with  soldiers  preparing  for  war,  or  angry  fanatics  who 
scoffed  at  the  rosaries  around  their  necks,  and  who 
might  have  ill-treated  them  or  put  them  to  death; 
they  bore  it  all,  however,  not  only  patiently  but 
light-heartedly,  and  on  January  6,  1537,  arrived  in 
Venice,  where  Ignatius  was  waiting  for  them.  To 
them  was  added  a  new  member  of  the  association, 
Diego  Hozes,  who  had  known  Ignatius  at  Alcala  and 
now  came  to  him  at  Venice. 

After  a  brief  rest,  which  they  took  by  waiting  on 
the  poor  and  sick  in  the  worst  hospital  of  the  city, 
they  were  told  to  go  down  to  Rome  to  ask  the  Pope's 
permission  to  carry  out  their  plans.  This  journey  was 
not  as  long  or  as  dangerous  as  the  one  they  had  just 


26  The  Jesuits 

made,  but  the  bad  weather,  the  long  fasts,  the  sickness 
of  some  of  them,  the  rebuffs  and  abusive  language 
which  they  received  when  they  asked  for  alms,  made 
it  hard  enough  for  flesh  and  blood  to  bear;  however 
their  devotion  to  the  end  they  had  in  view,  or  what 
the  world  might  call  their  Quixotic  enthusiasm  bore 
them  onward.  They  were  apprehensive,  however, 
about  their  reception  in  Rome,  not  it  is  true,  from  the 
Father  of  the  Faithful  himself,  but  from  a  certain  great 
Spanish  canonist,  a  Doctor  Ortiz,  who  happened  to  be 
just  then  at  the  papal  court,  making  an  appeal  to  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  in  behalf  of  Catherine  of  Aragon 
against  Henry  VIII. 

Ortiz  had  met  Ignatius  in  Paris  and  was  bitterly 
prejudiced  against  him.  That,  indeed,  was  the  reason 
why  the  little  band  appeared  in  the  Holy  City  without 
their  leader,  but  neither  he  nor  they  were  aware  that 
Ortiz  had  changed  his  mind  and  was  now  an  enthusi- 
astic friend.  Hence  when  the  travel-stained  envoys 
from  Venice  presented  themselves,  they  could  scarcely 
believe  their  eyes.  Ortiz  received  them  with  every 
demonstration  of  esteem  and  affection.  He  presented 
them  to  the  Pope,  and  urged  him  to  grant  all  their 
requests.  Subsequently,  Faber  acted  as  theologian  for 
Ortiz,  when  that  dignitary  represented  Charles  V  at 
Worms  and  in  Spain.  Of  course  the  Pontiff  was 
overjoyed  and  not  only  blessed  the  members  of  the 
little  band  but  gave  them  a  considerable  sum  of  money 
to  pay  their  passage  to  the  Holy  Land.  So  they 
hurried  back  to  Ignatius  with  the  good  news,  and  on 
June  24  all  those  who  were  not  priests  were  ordained. 

The  custom  that  prevails  in  the  Church,  in  our  days, 
is  for  a  newly-ordained  priest  to  celebrate  Mass  on  the 
morning  following  his  ordination;  but  Ignatius  and 
his  companions  prepared  themselves  for  this  great  act 
in  an  heroic  fashion.  They  buried  themselves  in 


Origin  27 

caverns  or  in  the  ruins  of  dilapidated  monasteries  for 
an  entire  month,  giving  themselves  up  to  fasting  and 
prayer,  preaching  at  times  in  some  adjourning  town 
or  hamlet.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  vacillating 
character  of  Rodriguez  revealed  itself.  He  and  Le  Jay 
had  taken  up  their  abode  in  a  hermitage  near  Bassano 
where  a  venerable  old  man  named  Antonio  was  reviving 
in  the  heart  of  Italy  the  practices  of  the  old  solitaries 
of  the  Thebaid.  Rodriguez  fell  ill  and  was  at  the 
point  of  death  when  Ignatius  arrived  and  told  him 
that  he  would  recover.  So,  indeed,  it  happened,  but 
singularly  enough  he  was  anxious  to  continue  his 
eremitical  life  and,  without  speaking  of  his  doubts  to 
Ignatius,  set  out  to  consult  the  old  hermit  about  it, 
but  became  conscience-stricken  before  he  arrived.  "  O 
man  of  little  faith,  why  did  you  doubt?"  was  all 
St.  Ignatius  said,  when  Rodriguez  confessed  what  he 
had  done.  Nevertheless,  that  did  not  cure  him,  for 
the  desire  of  leading  a  life  of  bodily  austerity  had 
taken  possession  of  him  and  was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
trouble  which  he  subsequently  caused  in  Portugal,  and 
also  when,  in  1554,  he  wrote  entreatingly  to  Pope 
Julius  III  for  permission  to  leave  the  Society  and 
become  a  hermit  (Prat,  Le  P.  Claude  Le  Jay,  32,  note). 

At  the  end  of  the  retreat,  they  all  returned  to  Venice, 
where  they  waited  in  vain  for  a  ship  to  carry  them  to 
the  land  of  the  Mussulmans.  It  was  only  when  there 
was  absolutely  no  hope  left,  that  they  made  up  their 
minds  to  go  back  to  Rome,  and  put  themselves  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Pope  for  any  work  he  might  give  them. 
As  this  was  fully  twenty  years  after  Martin  Luther 
had  nailed  his  thesis  to  the  church  door  of  Wittenberg, 
it  is  clear  that  Ignatius  had  no  idea  of  attacking 
Protestantism  when  he  founded  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

Possibly  this  stay  in  Venice  has  something  to  do 


28  The  Jesuits 

with  the  solution  of  a  question  which  has  been  fre- 
quently mooted  and  was  solemnly  discussed  at  a 
congress  of  physicians  at  San  Francisco  as  late  as  1900, 
namely,  why  did  Vesalius,  the  great  anatomist,  go  to 
the  Holy  Land?  The  usual  supposition  is  that  it  was 
to  perform  a  penance  enjoined  by  the  Inquisition  in 
consequence  of  some  alleged  heretical  utterances  by 
the  illustrious  scientist.  However,  Sir  Michael  Foster 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  who  was  the  principal 
speaker  at  the  Congress,  offered  another  explanation. 
"It  is  probable,"  he  said,  "  that  while  pursuing  his 
studies  in  the  hospitals  of  Venice,  Vesalius  often 
conversed  with  another  young  man  who  was  there  at 
the  time  and  who  was  known  as  Ignatius  Loyola." 
Such  a  meeting  may,  indeed,  have  occurred,  for  Ignatius 
haunted  the  hospitals,  and  his  keen  eye  would  have 
discerned  the  merit  of  Vesalius,  who  was  a  sincerely 
pious  man.  Hence,  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  the 
young  physician  may  have  made  the  "  Spiritual 
Exercises  "  under  the  direction  of  Ignatius,  and  that 
his  journey  to  the  Holy  Land  was  the  result  of  his 
intercourse  with  the  group  of  brilliant  young  students, 
who  just  then  had  no  other  object  in  life  but  to  convert 
the  Turks. 

On  the  journey  to  Rome  Ignatius  went  ahead  with 
Faber  and  Lainez,  and  it  was  then  that  he  had  the 
vision  of  Christ  carrying  the  cross,  and  heard  the 
promise:  "Ego  vobis  Romae  propitius  ero  "  (I  will 
be  propitious  to  you  in  Rome.)  They  were  received 
affectionately  and  trustingly  by  the  Pope,  who  sent 
Lainez  and  Faber  to  teach  in  the  Sapienza,  one  lecturing 
on  holy  scripture  and  the  other  on  scholastic  theology; 
while  Ignatius  gave  the  "'Spiritual  Exercises  "  wherever 
and  whenever  the  opportunity  presented  itself.  When 
the  other  four  arrived,  they  were  immediately  employed 
in  various  parts  of  Rome  in  works  of  charity  and  zeal. 


Origin  29 

It  was  in  Rome  that  Ignatius  first  came  in  personal 
contact  with  the  Reformation.  A  Calvinist  preacher 
who  had  arrived  in  the  city  had  succeeded  in  creating 
a  popular  outcry  against  the  new  priests,  by  accusing 
them  of  all  sorts  of  crimes.  As  such  charges  would 
be  fatal  in  that  place  above  all,  if  not  refuted,  the 
usual  policy  of  silence  was  not  observed.  By  the 
advice  of  the  Pope  the  affair  was  taken  to  court  where 
the  complaint  was  immediately  dismissed  and  an 
official  attestation  of  innocence  given  by  the  judge. 
The  result  was  a  counter-demonstration,  that  made  the 
accuser  flee  for  his  life  to  Geneva.  As  an  assurance  of 
his  confidence  in  them,  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  employed 
them  in  several  parts  of  Italy  where  the  doctrines  of 
the  Reformation  were  making  alarming  headway. 
Thus,  Brouet  and  Salmeron  were  sent  to  Siena;  Faber 
and  Lainez  accompanied  the  papal  legate  to  Parma; 
Xavier  and  Bobadilla  set  out  for  Campania;  Codure 
and  Hozes  for  Padua;  and  Rodriguez  and  Le  Jay  for 
Ferrara.  It  is  impossible  to  follow  them  all  in  these 
various  places,  but  a  brief  review  of  the  difficulties 
that  confronted  Rodriguez  and  Le  Jay  in  Ferrara  may 
be  regarded  as  typical  of  the  rest. 

In  conformity  with  the  instructions  of  Ignatius, 
they  lodged  at  the  hospital,  preached  whenever  they 
could,  either  in  the  churches  or  on  the  public  streets, 
and  taught  catechism  to  the  children  and  hunted  for 
scandalous  sinners.  An  old  woman  at  the  hospital 
discovered  by  looking  through  a  crack  in  the  door  that 
they  passed  a  large  part  of  the  night  on  their  knees. 
At  this  point  Hozes  died  at  Padua,  and  Rodriguez 
had  to  replace  him;  Le  Jay  was  thus  left  alone  at 
Ferrara.  The  duke,  Hercules  II,  became  his  friend, 
but  the  duchess,  Renee  of  France,  daughter  of  Louis 
XII,  avoided  him.  She  was  a  supposedly  learned 


30  The  Jesuits 

woman,  a  forerunner,  so  to  say,  of  the  prtcieuses  ridicules 
of  Moliere,  and  an  ardent  patron  of  Calvin,  a  frequent 
visitor  at  the  court,  along  with  the  lascivious  poet 
Clement  Marot,  who  translated  the  Psalms  into  verse 
to  popularize  Calvin's  heretical  teachings.  Another 
ominous  figure  that  loomed  up  at  Ferrara  was  the 
famous  Capuchin  preacher,  Bernardo  Ochino,  a  man 
of  remarkable  eloquence,  which,  however,  was  literary 
and  dramatic  rather  than  apostolic  in  its  character. 
His  emaciated  countenance,  his  long  flowing  white 
beard  and  his  fervent  appeals  to  penance  made  a  deep 
impression  on  the  people.  They  regarded  him  as  a 
saint,  never  dreaming  that  he  was  a  concealed  heretic, 
who  would  eventually  apostatize  and  assail  the  Church. 
He  was  much  admired  by  the  duchess,  who  conceived 
a  bitter  hatred  for  Le  Jay  and  would  not  even  admit 
him  to  her  presence.  The  trouble  of  the  Jesuit  was 
increased  by  the  attitude  of  the  bishop,  who,  knowing 
the  real  character  of  Ochino,  looked  with  suspicion  on 
Le  Jay,  as  possibly  another  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing; 
but  his  suspicions  were  soon  dispelled,  and  he  gave 
Le  Jay  every  means  in  his  power  to  revive  the  faith 
and  morals  of  the  city.  The  duchess,  however,  became 
so  aggressive  in  her  proselytism  that  the  duke  ordered 
her  into  seclusion,  and  when  he  died,  his  son  and 
successor  sent  her  back  to  her  people  in  France  where 
she  died  an  obstinate  heretic. 

From  Ferrara  Le  Jay  hastened  to  Bagnorea  to  end 
a  schism  there,  and  though  neither  side  would  listen  to 
him  at  first,  yet  his  patience  overcame  all  difficulties, 
and  finally,  everybody  met  everybody  else  in  the  great 
church,  embraced  and  went  to  Holy  Communion. 
Peace  then  reigned  in  the  city.  The  other  envoys 
achieved  similar  successes  elsewhere  throughout  the 
peninsula;  and  Cretineau-Joly  says  that  their  joint 
efforts  thwarted  the  plot  of  the  heretics  to  destroy  the 


Origin  31 

Faith  in  Italy.  The  winter  of  1538  was  extremely 
severe  in  Rome,  and  a  scarcity  of  provisions  brought 
on  what  amounted  almost  to  a  famine.  This  distress 
gave  Ignatius  and  his  companions  the  opportunity  of 
showing  their  devotion  to  the  suffering  poor ;  and  they 
not  only  contrived  in  some  way  or  other  to  feed,  in 
their  own  house,  as  many  as  four  hundred  famishing 
people,  but  inspired  many  of  the  well-to-do  classes  to 
imitate  their  example. 

With  this  and  other  good  works  to  their  credit,  they 
could  now  ask  the  authorization  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  for  their  enterprise.  Hence  on  September  3, 
1539,  they  submitted  a  draught  of  the  Constitution, 
and  were  pleased  to  hear  that  it  evoked  from  the  Pope 
the  exclamation:  '  The  finger  of  God  is  here."  But 
they  were  not  so  fortunate  with  the  commission  of 
cardinals  to  whom  the  matter  was  then  referred. 
Guidiccioni,  who  presided,  was  not  only  distinctly 
hostile,  but  expressed  the  opinion  that  all  existing 
religious  orders  should  be  reduced  to  four,  and  hence 
he  contemptuously  tossed  the  petition  aside.  It  was 
only  after  a  year  that  he  took  it  up  again  —  he  scarcely 
knew  why  —  and  on  reading  it  attentively  he  was 
completely  converted  and  hastened  to  report  on  it  as 
follows:  "Although  as  before,  I  still  hold  to  the 
opinion  that  no  new  religious  order  should  be  instituted, 
I  cannot  refrain  from  approving  this  one.  Indeed,  I 
regard  it  as  something  that  is  now  needed  to  help 
Christendom  in  its  troubles,  and  especially  to  destroy 
the  heresies  which  are  at  present  devastating  Europe." 
Thus  it  is  Guidiccioni  who  is  responsible  for  setting 
the  Society  to  undo  the  work  of  Martin  Luther. 

The  Pope  was  extremely  pleased  by  the  commission's 
report,  and  on  September  27,  1540,  he  issued  the 
Bull  "  Regimini  militantis  Ecclesias,"  approving  "  The 
Institute  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  In  this  Bull  and 


32  The  Jesuits 

that  of  Julius  III,  the  successor  of  Paul  III,  we  have 
the  official  statement  of  the  character  and  the  purpose 
of  the  Society.  Its  object  is  the  salvation  and  perfec- 
tion of  the  souls  of  its  members  and  of  the  neighbor. 
One  of  the  chief  means  for  that  end  is  the  gratuitous 
instruction  of  youth.  There  are  no  penances  of  rule; 
but  it  is  assumed  that  bodily  mortifications  are  practised 
and  employed,  though  only  under  direction.  Great 
care  is  taken  in  the  admission  and  formation  of  novices, 
and  lest  the  protracted  periods  of  study,  later,  should 
chill  the  fervor  of  their  devotion,  there  are  to  be 
semi-annual  spiritual  renovations,  and  when  the  studies 
are  over,  and  the  student  ordained  to  the  priesthood, 
there  is  a  third  year  of  probation,  somewhat  similar 
to  the  novitiate  in  its  exercises.  There  are  two 
grades  in  the  Society  —  one  of  professed,  the  other 
of  coadjutors,  both  spiritual  and  temporal. 

All  are  to  be  bound  by  the  three  vows  of  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience,  but  those  of  the  coadjutors 
are  simple,  while  those  of  the  professed  are  solemn. 
The  latter  make  a  fourth  vow,  namely,  one  of  obedience 
to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  which  binds  them  to  go 
wherever  he  sends  them,  and  to  do  so  without  excuse, 
and  without  provisions  for  the  journey.  The  Father- 
General  is  elected  for  life.  He  resides  in  Rome,  so  as 
to  be  at  the  beck  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  and  also 
because  of  the  international  character  of  the  Society. 
All  superiors  are  appointed  by  him,  and  he  is  regularly 
informed  through  the  provincials  about  all  the  members 
of  the  Society.  Every  three  years  there  is  a  meeting 
of  procurators  to  report  on  their  respective  provinces 
and  to  settle  matters  of  graver  moment.  The  General 
is  aided  in  his  government  by  assistants  chosen  mostly 
according  to  racial  divisions,  which  may  in  turn  be 
subdivided.  There  is  also  an  admonitor  who  sees  that 
the  General  governs  according  to  the  laws  of  the 


Origin  33 

Society  and  for  the  common  good.  Disturbers  of  the 
peace  of  the  Order  are  to  be  sharply  admonished,  and 
if  incorrigible,  expelled.  When  approved  scholastics 
or  formed  coadjutors  are  dismissed  they  are  dispensed 
from  their  simple  vows.  The  simple  vow  of  chastity 
made  by  the  scholastics  is  a  diriment  impediment  of 
matrimony.  Because  of  possible  withdrawals  or  dis- 
missals from  the  Society,  the  dominion  of  property 
previously  possessed  is  to  be  retained,  as  long  as  the 
general  may  see  fit,  but  not  the  usufruct  —  an 
arrangement  which  has  been  repeatedly  approved  by 
successive  Pontiffs,  as  well  as  by  the  Council  of  Trent. 
All  ambition  of  ecclesiastical  honors  is  shut  off  by  a 
special  vow  to  that  effect.  There  is  no  choir  or  special 
dress.  The  poverty  of  the  Society  is  of  the  strictest. 
The  professed  houses  are  to  subsist  on  alms,  and 
cannot  receive  even  the  usual  stipends.  Moreover,  the 
professed  are  bound  by  a  special  vow  to  watch  over 
and  prevent  any  relaxation  in  this  respect.  The  rule 
is  paternal,  and  hence  an  account  of  conscience  is  to 
be  made,  either  under  seal  of  confession  or  in  whatever 
way  the  individual  may  find  most  agreeable.  A  general 
congregation  may  be  convened  as  often  as  necessary. 
Its  advisability  is  determined  at  the  meeting  of  the 
procurators.  In  the  first  part  of  the  Constitution,  the 
impediments  and  the  mode  of  admission  are  considered ; 
in  the  second,  the  manner  of  dismissal;  in  the  third 
and  fourth,  the  means  of  furthering  piety  and  study 
and  whatever  else  concerns  the  spiritual  advancement, 
chiefly  of  the  scholastics;  the  fifth  explains  the  char- 
acter of  those  who  are  to  be  admitted  and  also  the 
various  grades;  the  sixth  deals  with  the  occupations 
of  the  members ;  the  seventh  treats  of  those  of  superiors ; 
the  eighth  and  ninth  relate  to  the  General;  and  the 
tenth  determines  the  ways  and  means  of  government. 
Before  the  Constitutions  were  promulgated,  Ignatius 
3 


34  The  Jesuits 

submitted  them  to  the  chief  representatives  of  the 
various  nationalities  then  in  the  Order,  but  they  did 
not  receive  the  force  of  law  until  they  were  approved 
by  the  first  general  congregation  of  the  whole  Society. 
After  that  they  were  presented  to  Pope  Paul  III,  and 
examined  by  four  Cardinals.  Not  a  word  had  been 
altered  when  they  were  returned.  The  Sovereign 
Pontiff  declared  that  they  were  more  the  result  of 
Divine  inspiration  than  of  human  prudence. 

For  those  who  read  these  Constitutions  without  any 
preconceived  notions,  the  meaning  is  obvious,  whereas 
the  intention  of  discovering  something  mysterious  and 
malignant  in  them  inevitably  leads  to  the  most 
ridiculous  misinterpretations  of  the  text.  Thus,  for 
instance,  some  writers  inform  us  that  St.  Ignatius  is 
not  the  author  of  the  Constitutions,  but  Lainez, 
Mercurian  or  Acquaviva.  Others  assure  their  readers 
that  no  Pope  can  ever  alter  or  modify  even  the  text; 
that  the  General  has  special  power  to  absolve  novices 
from  any  mortal  sins  they  may  have  committed  before 
entering;  that  the  general  confessions  of  beginners  are 
carefully  registered  and  kept;  that  a  special  time  is 
assigned  to  them  for  reading  accounts  of  miraculous 
apparitions  and  demoniacal  obsessions;  that  before 
the  two  years  of  novitiate  have  elapsed  a  vow  must  be 
taken  to  enter  the  Society;  that  all  wills  made  in 
favor  of  one's  family  must  be  rescinded;  that  in 
meditating,  the  eyes  must  be  fixed  on  a  certain  point 
and  the  thoughts  centered  on  the  Pater  Noster  until 
a  state  of  quasi-hypnotism  results;  that  the  grades  in 
the  Society  are  reached  after  thirty  or  thirty-five  years 
of  probation,  after  which  the  applicant  becomes  a 
probationer;  the  professed  are  called  "ours";  the 
spiritual  coadjutors  "  externs."  The  latter  do  the 
plotting  and  have  aroused  all  the  ill-will  of  which  the 
Society  has  been  the  object;  whereas  the  professed 


Origin  35 

devote   themselves  to   prayer  and   are   admired  and 
loved. 

There  are  also,  we  are  assured,  secret,  outside 
Jesuits.  The  Emperors  Ferdinand  II  and  III,  and 
Sigismund  of  Poland  are  put  in  that  class,  and  probably 
also  John  III  of  Portugal  and  Maximilian  of  Bavaria; 
while  Louis  XIV  is  suspected  of  belonging  to  it.  The 
Father-General  dispenses  such  members  from  the 
priesthood  and  from  wearing  the  soutane.  "  Imagine 
Louis  XIV,"  says  Brou,  who  furnishes  these  details, 
"  asking  the  General  of  the  Jesuits  to  be  dispensed 
from  wearing  the  soutane!"  Unlike  the  other  Jesuits, 
these  cryptics  would  not  be  obliged  to  go  to  Rome  to 
pronounce  their  vows.  Again,  it  is  said,  Pope  Paul  IV 
had  great  difficulty  in  persuading  the  Jesuits  to  accept 
the  dispensation  from  the  daily  recitation  of  the 
breviary.  Perhaps  the  most  charming  of  all  of  these 
"  discoveries  "  is  that  the  famous  phrase  perinde  ac 
cadaver,  "  you  must  obey  as  if  you  were  a  dead  body," 
was  borrowed  from  the  Sheik  Si-Senoussi  who  laid 
down  rules  to  his  Senoussis  in  Africa,  about  two 
centuries  after  St.  Ignatius  had  died.  The  authors 
of  these  extraordinary  conceptions  are  Muller,  Reuss, 
Cartwright,  Pollard,  Vollet  and  others,  all  of  whom  are 
honoured  with  a  notice  posted  in  the  British  Museum, 
as  worthy  of  being  consulted  on  the  puzzling  subject 
of  Jesuitry,  and  yet  the  Constitutions  of  the  Society 
and  the  explanations  of  them,  by  prominent  Jesuit 
writers,  can  be  found  in  any  public  library. 


CHAPTER  II 

'INITIAL   ACTIVITIES 

Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Germany,  Italy  —  Election  of  Ignatius  — 
Jesuits  in  Ireland  — "  The  Scotch  Doctor  " —  Faber  and  Melancthon 

—  Le     Jay  —  Bobadilla  —  Council     of     Trent  —  Lainez,     Salmer6n, 
Canisius  —  The  Catechism  —  Opposition  in  Spain  —  Cano  —  Pius  V 

—  First  Missions  to  America  —  The  French  Parliaments  —  Postel  — 
Foundation  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum  at  Rome  —  Similar  Estab- 
lishments in  Germany  —  Clermont  and  other  Colleges  in  France  — 
Colloque  de  Poissy. 

THE  pent-up  energy  of  the  new  organization  immedi- 
ately found  vent  not  only  in  Europe  but  at  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  Portugal  gave  its  members  their  first 
welcome  when  Xavier  and  Rodriguez  went  there,  the 
latter  to  remain  permanently,  the  former  only  for  a 
brief  space.  Araoz  evangelized  Spain  and  was  the  first 
Jesuit  to  enter  into  relations  with  Francis  Borgia, 
Viceroy  of  Catalonia,  who  afterwards  became  General 
of  the  Society.  A  college  was  begun  in  Paris  and  pro- 
vided with  professors  such  as  Strada,  Ribadeneira, 
Oviedo  and  Mercurian.  Faber  accompanied  Ortiz,  the 
papal  legate,  to  Germany;  Brouet,  Bobadilla,  Salmeron, 
Codure  and  Lainez  went  everywhere  through  Italy; 
while  Ignatius  remained  at  Rome,  directing  their 
operations  and  meantime  establishing  orphanages,  night 
refuges,  Magdalen  asylumns,  shelters  for  persecuted 
Jews,  and  similar  institutions.  Strangely  enough, 
Ignatius  was  not  yet  the  General  of  the  Society,  for  no 
election  had  thus  far  taken  place.  Strictly  speaking, 
however,  none  was  needed,  for  none  of  the  associates 
ever  dreamed  of  any  other  leader.  However,  on 
April  5,  1541,  the  balloting  took  place;  those  who  were 
absent  sending  their  votes  by  messenger.  That  of 

[36] 


Initial  Activities  37 

Xavier  could  not  arrive  in  time,  for  he  had  already 
left  Portugal  for  the  East;  indeed  he  had  departed 
before  the  official  approval  of  the  Order  by  the  Pope  — 
two  things  which  have  suggested  to  some  inventive 
historians  that  Francis  Xavier  was  not  really  a  Jesuit. 
They  would  have  proved  their  point  better,  if  they 
could  have  shown  Xavier  had  remained  in  Europe 
after  he  had  been  ordered  away.  As  a  matter  of  fact; 
he  had  been  one  of  the  collaborators  of  Ignatius  in 
framing  the  Constitutions  and  was  still  in  Portugal 
when  the  news  arrived  of  Guidiccioni's  change  of  mind. 
In  the  election  every  vote  but  one  went  for  Ignatius. 
The  missing  one  was  his  own.  He  was  dissatisfied  and 
asked  for  another  election.  Out  of  respect  for  him, 
the  request  was  granted  but  with  the  same  result  — 
Such  a  concession,  it  may  be  noted,  is  never  granted 
now.  The  one  who  is  chosen  submits  without  a  word. 
The  office  is  for  life  but  provisions  are  made  for  re- 
moval —  a  contingency  which  happily  has  never  arisen. 
As  in  the  beginning,  those  elections  are  held  at  what 
are  called  general  congregations.  The  first  one  was 
made  up  of  all  the  available  fathers  but  at  present  they 
consist  of  the  fathers  assistant,  namely  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  principal  linguistic  groups  in  the 
Society  or  their  subdivisions  —  a  body  of  men  who 
constitute  what  is  called  the  Curia  and  who  live  with 
the  General;  the  provincials;  two  delegates  from  each 
province;  and  finally  the  procurator  of  the  Society. 
With  one  exception,  these  congregations  have  always 
met  in  Rome;  the  exception  is  the  one  that  chose  Father 
Lids  Martin  in  1892,  which  assembled  at  Loyola  in 
Spain.  That  these  elections  may  be  absolutely  free 
from  all  external  and  internal  influence,  the  delegates 
are  strictly  secluded,  and  have  no  communication  with 
other  members  of  the  Society.  Four  days  are  spent  in 
prayer  and  in  seeking  information  from  the  various 


38  The  Jesuits 

electors,  but  the  advocacy  of  any  particular  candidate 
is  absolutely  prohibited.  The  ballot  is  secret  and  the 
voting  is  immediately  preceded  by  an  hour's  meditation 
in  presence  of  the  crucifix.  The  electors  are  fasting, 
but  the  method  of  voting  is  such  that  a  deadlock  or 
even  any  great  delay  is  next  to  impossible.  Up  to  the 
time  of  the  Suppression  of  the  Society  in  1773,  there 
had  been  eighteen  Generals.  In  the  interim  between 
that  catastrophe  and  the  re-establishment,  there  were 
three  Vicars-General,  who  were  compelled  by  force  of 
circumstances  to  live  in  Russia.  In  1802  on  the  receipt 
of  the  Brief  "  Catholicae  Pidei,"  the  title  of  the  last 
Vicar  was  changed  to  that  of  General.  Since  then, 
there  have  been  eight  successors  to  that  post. 

St.  Ignatius  was  chosen  General  on  Easter  Sunday,* 
1541.  After  the  election,  the  companions  repaired  to 
St.  Paul's  outside  the  Walls  and  there  renewed  their 
vows.  On  that  occasion  it  was  ordained  that  every 
professed  father  should,  after  making  his  vows,  teach 
catechism  to  children  or  ignorant  people  for  forty  days; 
subsequently  this  obligation  was  extended  to  rectors  of 
colleges  after  their  installation.  Ignatius  acquitted 
himself  of  this  task  in  the  church  of  Our  Lady  of  the 
Wayside  at  the  foot  of  the  Capitol. 

In  1541  we  find  Salmeron  and  Brouet  on  their  way 
to  Ireland  as  papal  nuncios.  They  had  been  asked 
for  by  Archbishop  Wauchope  of  Armagh,  when  Henry 
VIII  was  endeavoring  to  crush  out  the  Faith  in  England 
and  Ireland.  Wauchope  is  a  very  interesting  historical 
character.  He  had  been  named  Archb.ishop  of  Armagh 
after  Browne  of  that  see  had  apostatized.  He  was 
generally  known  as  "  the  Scotch  Doctor,"  and  had 
been  the  Delegate  of  Pope  Paul  III  at  Spires  where 
Charles  V  was  striving  in  vain  to  conciliate  the  German 
princes.  With  him  as  advisers  were  Le  Jay,  Bobadilla 
and  Faber.  What  made  him  especially  conspicuous 


Initial  Activities  39 

then  and  subsequently,  was  the  fact  that  he  had  risen 
to  the  dignity  of  archbishop  and  of  papal  delegate 
though  he  was  born  blind.  This  is  asserted  by  a  host 
of  authors,  among  them  Prat  in  his  life  of  Le  Jay, 
and  Cretineau-Joly,  MacGeoghegan  and  Moore  in 
their  histories. 

On  the  other  hand  we  find  in  the  "  Acta  Sanctae 
Sedis  "  (XIII)  a  flat  denial  of  it  by  no  less  a  personage 
than  Pope  Benedict  XIV.  It  occurs  incidentally  in 
a  decision  given  on  March  20,  1880,  in  connection  with 
an  appeal  for  a  young  theologian,  whose  sight  was  very 
badly  impaired  at  the  end  of  his  theological  course. 
The  appellants  had  alleged  the  case  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Armagh  and  the  court  answered  as  follows:  "  Nee 
valeret  adduci  exemplum  cujusdam  Roberti  Scoti,  cui 
quamvis  casco  a  puerili  aetate,  concessa  fuit  facultas 
nedum  ad  sacerdotium  sed  etiam  ad  episcopatum, 
ascendendi,  uti  tenent  Maiol.  (De  irregularitate),  et 
Barbos  (De  officio  episcopi}.  Respondet  enim  Bene- 
dictus  XIV,  quod  reliqui  scriptores,  quibus  major  fides 
habenda  est,  Robertum  non  oculis  captum  sed  infirmum 
fuisse  dicunt;"  which  in  brief  means:  "  Benedict  XIV 
declares  that  the  most  reliable  historians  say  that 
Scotch  Robert  was  not  blind  but  of  feeble  vision." 
As  Benedict  XIV  was  perhaps  the  greatest  scholar  who 
ever  occupied  the  Chair  of  Peter,  and  as  his  extraor- 
dinary intellectual  abilities  were  devoted  from  the 
beginning  of  his  career  to  historical,  canonical  and 
liturgical  studies,  in  which  he  is  regarded  as  of  the 
highest  authority,  such  an  utterance  may  be  accepted 
as  final  with  regard  to  the  "  Scotch  Doctor's  "  blind- 
ness. 

Codure  was  to  have  been  one  of  the  Irish  delegates, 
but  he  died,  and  hence  Salmeron,  Brouet  and  Zapata 
undertook  the  perilous  mission.  The  last  mentioned 
was  a  wealthy  ecclesiastic  who  was  about  to  enter  the 


40  The  Jesuits 

Society  and  had  offered  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the 
journey.  In  the  instructions  for  their  manner  of  acting 
Ignatius  ordered  that  Brouet  should  be  spokesman 
whenever  nobles  or  persons  of  importance  were  to  be 
dealt  with.  As  Brouet  had  the  looks  and  the  sweetness 
of  an  angel,  whereas  Salmeron  was  abrupt  at  times, 
the  wisdom  of  the  choice  was  obvious.  They  went  by 
the  way  of  France  to  Scotland,  and  when  at  Stirling 
Castle,  they  received  a  letter  from  James  V,  the  father 
of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  bespeaking  their  interest  in 
his  people.  Cretineau-Joly  says  they  saw  the  king 
personally.  Fouqueray  merely  hints  at  its  likelihood. 
From  Scotland  they  passed  over  to  Ireland  and  found 
that  the  enemy  knew  of  their  arrival.  A  price  was  put 
upon  their  heads,  and  they  had  to  hurry  from  place  to 
place  so  as  not  to  compromise  those  who  gave  them 
shelter.  But  in  the  brief  period  of  a  month  which 
they  had  at  their  disposal  before  they  were  recalled 
by  the  Pope  they  had  ample  opportunity  to  take  in 
the  conditions  that  prevailed.  They  returned  as  they 
had  gone,  through  Scotland  and  over  to  Dieppe,  and 
then  directed  their  steps  to  Rome,  but  they  were 
arrested  as  spies  near  Lyons  and  thrown  into  prison  - 
a  piece  of  news  which  Paget,  the  English  ambassador 
in  France,  hastened  to  communicate  to  Henry; 
Cardinals  de  Tournon  and  Gaddi,  however,  succeeded 
in  having  them  released  and  they  then  proceeded  to 
the  Holy  City  to  make  their  report. 

Eighteen  years  later,  Father  Michael  Gaudan  was 
sent  as  papal  nuncio  to  Mary  Stuart.  He  entered 
Edinburgh  disguised  as  a  Scottish  peddler  and  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  queen.  As  a  Frenchman  could  not 
have  acted  the  part  of  a  Scottish  peddler,  it  is  more 
than  likely  that  Gaudan  is  a  gallicized  form  of  Gordon. 
Indeed,  there  is  on  the  records  a  Father  James  Gordon, 
S.  J.,  who  had  so  exasperated  the  Calvinists  by  his 


Initial  Activities  41 

refutation  of  their  errors  that  he  was  driven  out  of  the 
country.  He  returned  again,  however,  immediately, 
as  he  simply  got  a  boat  to  take  him  off  the  ship  which 
was  carrying  him  into  exile,  and  on  the  following  day 
he  stood  once  more  upon  his  native  heath,  remaining 
there  for  some  years  sustaining  his  persecuted  Catholic 
brethren  (Claude  Nau,  Mary's  secretary). 

That  the  "  blind  Archbishop "  also  succeeded  in 
reaching  his  see  is  clear  from  a  passage  in  Moore's 
"  History  of  Ireland  "  (xlvii),  which  tells  how  during 
the  reign  of  Edward  VI  two  French  gentlemen,  the 
Baron  de  Fourquevaux  and  the  Sisur  Montluc,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Valence,  went  to  Ireland  as  envoys 
of  the  French  king  and  were  concealed  in  Culmer 
Fort  on  Loch  Foyle.  They  kept  a  diary  of  their 
journey  which  may  be  found,  we  are  assured,  in  the 
"  Armorial-general  ou  registre  de  la  noblesse  de  France." 
The  diary  relates  that  while  at  the  Fort  "  they  received 
a  visit  from  Robert  Wauchope,  better  known  by  his  pen 
name  as  Venantius,  a  divine  whose  erudition  was  the 
more  remarkable  as  he  had  been  blind  from  birth  and 
was  at  the  time,  titular  Archbishop  of  Armagh." 
He  did  not,  however,  remain  in  Ireland.  MacGeo- 
ghegan  says  "  he  returned  to  the  Continent  and  died 
in  the  Jesuit  house  at  Paris  in  the  year  1551.  Stewart 
Rose  in  her  "  Saint  Ignatius  Loyola  and  the  Early 
Jesuits "  tells  us  it  was  at  Lyons,  but  that  was 
impossible,  for  there  was  no  Jesuit  establishment  in 
Lyons  until  after  the  great  pestilence  of  1565,  when 
the  authorities  offered  the  Society  the  municipal 
college  of  the  Trinity  as  a  testimonial  of  gratitude  to 
Father  Auger.  The  generosity  of  this  offer,  however, 
was  not  excessive.  The  Fathers  were  to  take  it  for 
two  years  on  trial.  They  did  so  and  then  the  pro- 
vincial insisted  that  the  gift  should  be  absolute  or  the 
staff  would  be  withdrawn.  After  some  bickering  on 


42  The  Jesuits 

the  part  of  a  number  of  Calvinist  echevins  or  aldermen, 
the  grant  was  made  in  perpetuity  and  confirmed  by 
Charles  IX  in  1568. 

Meantime,  Faber  had  been  laboring  in  Germany. 
He  was  to  have  been  the  Catholic  orator  at  Worms 
in  1540,  but  conditions  were  such  that  he  made  no 
public  utterance.  Melanchthon  was  present,  but 
whether  Faber  and  he  met  is  not  clear.  In  1541 
Faber  received  an  enthusiastic  welcome  at  Ratisbon 
from  the  Catholics,  especially  from  Cochlaeus,  the  great 
antagonist  of  Luther.  Among  his  opponents  at  the 
Diet  were  Bucer  and  Melanchthon ;  the  discussion,  as 
usual,  led  to  no  result.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  notes 
the  inability  of  the  Emperor  to  prevent  the  general 
ruin  of  the  Faith.  From  Ratisbon  he  went  to  Nurem- 
berg, but  as  the  legate  had  been  recalled,  Faber's 
work  necessarily  came  to  an  end.  Le  Jay  and  Boba- 
dilla  succeeded  him  in  Germany.  The  former 
addressed  the  assembly  of  the  bishops  at  Salzburg, 
preached  in  the  Lutheran  churches,  escaped  being 
poisoned  on  one  occasion  and  drowned  on  another; 
he  failed,  however,  to  check  the  flood  of  heresy,  which 
had  not  only  completely  engulfed  Ratisbon,  but 
threatened  to  invade  Catholic  Bavaria,  although  Duke 
William  maintained  that  such  an  event  was  impossible. 
Ingolstadt  had  already  been  badly  damaged,  both 
doctrinally  and  morally;  and  Bobadilla  was  despatched 
thither  by  the  legate  to  see  what  could  be  done. 

Faber  had,  meantime,  returned  to  Germany.  In 
spite  of  attacks  by  highwaymen,  imprisonment,  ill- 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  disorderly  bands  of  soldiers 
and  heretics,  he  reached  Spires  and  completely  revived 
the  spirit  of  the  clergy.  From  there  he  hastened  to 
Cologne,  but  in  the  midst  of  his  work  he  was  sent  off 
to  Portugal  for  the  marriage  of  the  king's  daughter. 
By  the  time  he  reached  Louvain,  he  was  sick  and 


Initial  Activities  43 

exhausted,  so  that  the  order  to  proceed  to  Portugal 
had  to  be  rescinded.  He  then  returned  to  Cologne, 
where  he  again  met  Bucer  and  Melanchthon,  who  were 
endeavoring  to  induce  the  bishop  to  apostatize. 
Apprehensive  of  their  success,  he  had  them  both 
expelled  from  the  city.  Again  he  was  summoned  to 
Portugal,  and  in  1547  the  king,  at  his  instance,  gave 
the  Society  the  college  of  Coimbra.  Similar  establish- 
ments were  begun  about  the  same  time  in  Spain  — 
at  Valencia,  Barcelona  and  Valladolid,  chiefly  through 
the  influence  of  Araoz. 

Le  Jay,  meanwhile,  had  been  made  professor  of 
theology  at  Innsbruck,  on  the  death  of  the  famous 
Dr.  Eck,  and  the  university  petitioned  the  Pope  to 
make  his  appointment  perpetual ;  but  he  was  clamored 
for  simultaneously  by  several  bishops,  and  we  find  him 
subsequently  at  Augsburg,  Salzburg,  Dillingen  and 
elsewhere,  battling  incessantly  for  the  cause  of  the 
Faith.  He  succeeded  in  inducing  the  bishops  assembled 
at  Augsburg  to  prohibit  the  discussion  of  religion  at 
the  Diet,  and  a  little  later  he  assisted  at  the  ecclesiastical 
council  of  the  province.  With  him  at  this  gathering 
was  Bobadilla,  who,  says  the  chronicler,  "  resembled 
him  in  energy  and  zeal  but  was  altogether  unlike  him 
in  character."  Le  Jay  was  gentle  and  persuasive; 
Bobadilla,  impetuous  and  volcanic.  Bobadilla's  fire, 
however,  seems  to  have  pleased  the  Germans.  He 
strengthened  the  nobles  and  people  of  Innsbruck  in 
their  faith,  was  consulted  by  King  Ferdinand  on  the 
gravest  questions,  scored  brilliant  successes  in  public 
disputes,  and  was  made  socius  of  the  Apostolic  nuncio 
at  Nuremberg,  where,  it  was  suspected,  a  deep  plot  was 
being  laid  for  the  complete  extirpation  of  the  Faith. 
At  the  king's  request,  he  attended  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
and  by  his  alertness  and  knowledge  rendered  immense 
service  to  the  Catholic  party.  He  was  shortly  after- 


44  The  Jesuits 

ward  summoned  by  the  king  to  Vienna  where  he 
preached  to  the  people  incessantly  and  revived  the 
ecclesiastical  spirit  of  the  clergy.  He  was  again  at 
Worms  for  another  diet,  and  persuaded  both  the 
emperor  and  Ferdinand  to  oppose  the  Lutheran  scheme 
of  convoking  a  general  council  in  Germany.  At  the 
suggestion  of  St.  Ignatius,  an  appeal  had  been  made 
to  the  bishops,  through  Le  Jay,  to  establish  seminaries 
in  their  dioceses.  They  all  approved  of  the  project; 
and  several  immediately  set  to  work  to  carry  it  out. 

When  the  Diet  adjourned,  Le  Jay  left  Germany  to 
take  part  in  the  Council  of  Trent,  while  Bobadilla 
remained  with  the  king  as  spiritual  adviser  to  the 
court  and  general  supervisor  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
soldiers  of  the  royal  armies.  In  the  latter  capacity  he 
acquitted  himself  with  his  usual  energy  —  his  impetu- 
osity, of  character  often  bringing  him  into  the  forefront 
of  battle,  where  he  merited  several  honorable  scars 
for  his  daring.  He  also  succeeded  in  falling  a  victim 
to  the  pestilence  which  was  ravaging  the  country;  he 
was  robbed  and  maltreated  by  marauders,  but  came 
through  it  all  safely,  and  we  find  him  at  the  Diets  of 
Ratisbon  and  Augsburg,  everywhere  showing  himself 
a  genuine  apostle,  as  the  Archbishop  of  Vienna  informed 
Ignatius.  The  king  offered  him  a  bishopric,  but  he 
refused.  He  was  soon,  however,  to  know  Germany 
no  more. 

The  Council  of  Trent  had  already  been  in  session 
for  three  years,  when  Charles  V  issued  an  edict  known 
as  the  Interim,  which  forbade  any  change  of  religion 
until  the  council  had  finished  its  work;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  made  concessions  to  the  heretics  which 
angered  the  Catholics  both  lay  and  clerical.  Bobadilla 
was  especially  outspoken  in  the  matter  and  in  a  public 
discourse  was  imprudent  enough  to  condemn  the 
imperial  policy.  Clearly  he  had  not  yet  acquired  the 


Initial  Activities  45 

characteristic  virtue  of  his  great  leader.  Not  only  did 
he  not  mend  matters  by  his  intemperate  eloquence,  but 
he  created  an  aversion  for  the  Society  in  the  mind  of 
Charles  V,  which  lasted  till  the  time  of  St.  Francis 
Borgia.  Besides,  he  virtually  blasted  his  own  career. 
He  was  ordered  to  Naples  by  St.  Ignatius  and  forbidden 
to  present  himself  at  the  Jesuit  house  as  he  passed 
through  Rome.  He  appears  only  once  later  and 
then  in  a  manner  scarcely  redounding  to  his  credit: 
objecting  to  the  election  of  Lainez  as  vicar,  although 
he  had  previously  voted  for  him  and  obeyed  him  for 
a  year.  Happily  the  brilliant  services  of  his  fellow 
Jesuits  who  were  at  the  Council  of  Trent  and  elsewhere, 
as  well  as  his  own  splendid  past,  averted  any  very 
great  damage  to  the  Society. 

Although  Ignatius  had  been  invited  to  be  present 
at  the  sessions  in  Trent,  he  sedulously  avoided  the 
prominence  which  that  would  have  given  him  person- 
ally; moreover,  absence  from  his  post  as  General  of 
the  newly-formed  Institute  would  have  materially 
interfered  with  the  task  of  preparing  successors  to 
the  great  men  who  were  already  at  work.  Thus, 
Salmeron  and  Lainez  were  the  Pope's  theologians  and 
Father  Faber  was  summoned  from  his  sick  bed  in 
Portugal  to  assist  them,  but  he  arrived  in  Rome  only 
to  die  in  the  arms  of  Ignatius  and  never  appeared  at 
the  council.  Le  Jay  was  present  as  theologian  of  the 
Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Augsburg;  Cavallino  repre- 
sented the  Duke  of  Bavaria;  and  later  Canisius  and 
Polanco  were  added  to  the  group.  The  coming  of 
Canisius  was  due  more  or  less  to  an  accident.  He 
had  been  laboring  at  Cologne  to  prevent  the  archbishop, 
Herman  von  Weid,  from  openly  apostatizing;  when 
the  concessions  to  Melanchthon  and  Bucer  had  become 
too  outrageous  to  be  tolerated,  he  had  hurried  off  to 
meet  the  emperor  and  King  Ferdinand  to  ask  for  the 


46  The  Jesuits 

deposition  of  the  prelate.  With  the  king  he  met 
Truchsess,  the  great  Cardinal  of  Augsburg,  and  had 
no  difficulty  in  gaining  his  point,  but  the  Cardinal  was 
so  fascinated  by  the  ability  of  the  young  pleader  that 
he  insisted  on  taking  him  to  Trent  as  his  theologian  in 
spite  of  the  protests  of  the  whole  city  of  Cologne. 

Naturally,  many  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Council  had 
their  suspicions  of  these  new  theologians.  They  were 
members  of  a  religious  order  which  had  broken  with 
the  traditions  of  the  past,  and  they  might  possibly  be 
heretics  in  disguise.  Moreover,  they  were  alarmingly 
young.  Canisius  was  only  twenty-six,  Salmeron  thirty- 
one,  Le  Jay  about  the  same  age,  and  Lainez,  the  chief 
figure  in  the  council,  not  more  than  thirty-four.  But 
the  indubitable  holiness  of  their  lives,  their  amazing 
learning,  and  their  uncompromising  orthodoxy  soon 
dissipated  all  doubts  about  them.  Lainez  and  Salmeron 
were  especially  prominent.  They  were  allowed  to 
speak  as  long  as  they  chose  on  any  topic.  Thus,  after 
Lainez  had  discoursed  for  an  entire  day  on  the  Sacrifice 
of  the  Mass,  he  was  ordered  to  continue  on  the  following 
morning.  Entire  sections  of  the  Acts  of  the  council 
were  written  by  him;  and  by  order  of  the  Pope  both 
he  and  Salmeron  had  to  be  present  at  all  the  sessions 
of  the  council,  which  lasted  with  its  interruptions  from 
1545  to  1563.  Bishoprics  and  a  cardinal's  hat  were 
offered  to  Lainez ;  and,  at  the  death  of  Paul  IV,  twelve 
votes  were  cast  for  him  as  Pope.  Indeed  one  section  of 
the  cardinals  had  made  up  their  minds  to  elect  him,  but 
when  apprised  of  it,  he  fled  and  kept  in  concealment 
until  the  danger  was  averted.  He  was  at  that  time 
General  of  the  Society. 

After  the  first  adjournment  of  the  council,  these  men 
whose  stupendous  labors  would  appear  to  have  called 
for  some  repose  were  granted  none  at  all.  Thus,  we  find 
Lainez  summoned  by  the  Duke  of  Etruria  to  found  a 


Initial  Activities  47 

college  in  Florence.  The  Pope's  vicar  wanted  him  to  look 
after  the  ecclesiastical  needs  of  Bologna,  whither  he 
repaired  with  Salmeron,  while  Le  Jay  was  working  at 
Ferrara  and  elsewhere  in  the  Peninsula.  The  most 
remarkable  of  them  all,  however,  in  the  matter  of  work 
during  these  recesses  was  undoubtedly  Peter  Canisius 
(Kanness,  Kanys  or  De  Hondt,  as  he  was  variously 
called.)  One  would  naturally  imagine  that  he  would 
have  been  sent  back  to  Cologne  to  the  scene  of  his 
former  triumphs.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  ordered  to 
teach  rhetoric  in  the  newly-founded  college  of  Messina 
in  Sicily.  He  was  then  recalled  to  Rome,  where  he 
made  his  solemn  profession  in  the  hands  of  St.  Ignatius; 
after  this  he  started  with  Le  Jay  and  Salmeron  to 
Ingolstadt,  where  he  taught  theology  and  began  his 
courses  of  catechetical  instructions  which  were  to 
restore  the  lost  Faith  of  Germany. 

On  the  way  to  the  scene  of  his  labors,  he  received  a 
doctor's  degree  at  Bologna.  In  1550  he  was  made 
rector  of  the  University  of  Ingolstadt,  but  was  never- 
theless, sent  to  Vienna  to  found  a  new  college.  He 
was  simultaneously  court  preacher,  director  of  the 
hospitals  and  prisons,  and,  in  Lent,  the  apostle  of  the 
abandoned  parishes  of  Lower  Austria.  He  was  offered 
the  See  of  Vienna,  but  three  times  he  refused  it,  though 
he  had  to  administer  the  diocese  during  the  year  1557. 
Five  years  prior  to  that  he  had  opened  colleges  at 
Prague  and  Ingolstadt,  after  which  he  was  appointed 
the  first  provincial  of  Germany.  He  was  adviser  of 
the  king  at  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon,  and  by  order  of  the 
Pope  took  part  in  the  religious  discussions  at  Worms. 
He  began  negotiations  for  a  college  at  Strasburg,  and 
made  apostolic  excursions  to  that  place  as  well  as  to 
Freiburg  and  Alsace.  While  taking  part  in  the  general 
congregation  of  the  order  in  Rome,  he  was  sent  by 
Pope  Paul  IV  to  the  imperial  Diet  of  Pieterkow  in 


48  The  Jesuits 

Poland.  In  1559  he  was  summoned  by  the  emperor 
to  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  and  had  to  remain  in  that 
city  from  1561  to  1562  as  cathedral  preacher;  during 
this  time  it  is  recorded  that  besides  giving  retreats, 
teaching  catechism  and  hearing  confessions,  he  appeared 
as  many  as  two  hundred  and  ten  times  in  the  pulpit. 
In  1562  he  was  back  again  as  papal  theologian  at  Trent, 
where  he  found  himself  at  odds  with  Lainez,  then 
General  of  the  Society,  on  the  question  of  granting  the 
cup  to  the  laity  —  Lainez  opposing  this  concession, 
which  he  advocated.  He  remained  at  the  council  only 
for  a  few  sessions,  but  returned  again  after  having 
reconciled  the  Emperor  with  the  Pope.  The  Emperor's 
favor,  however,  he  lost  later  when  he  changed  his 
views  about  Communion  under  both  species,  and  also 
by  reason  of  an  unfounded  charge  of  revealing  imperial 
secrets  which  had  been  made  against  him. 

In  that  year  Canisius  opened  the  college  of  Innsbruck 
and  directed  the  spiritual  life  of  Magdalena,  the  saintly 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  I.  In  1564  he  inaugurated  the 
college  of  Dillingen  and  became  administrator  of  the 
university  of  that  place ;  he  was  also  constituted  secret 
nuncio  of  Pius  IV  to  promulgate  the  decrees  of  the 
council  in  Germany.  His  mission  was  interrupted  by 
the  death  of  the  Pope,  and  although  Pius  V  desired 
him  to  continue  in  that  office,  he  declined,  because  it 
exposed  him  to  the  accusation  of  meddling  in  politics. 
In  1566  he  was  theologian  of  the  legate  at  the  Diet 
of  Augsburg  and  persuaded  that  dignitary  not  to  issue 
a  mandate  against  the  so-called  religious  peace.  He 
thus  prevented  another  war  and  gave  new  life  to  the 
Catholics  of  Germany.  In  1567  he  founded  a  college 
at  Wurzburg,  and  evangelized  Mayence  and  Spires. 
At  Dillingen  he  received  young  Stanislaus  Kostka  into 
the  Society  conditionally  and  sent  him  to  Rome;  he 
settled  a  philosophical  dispute  at  Innsbruck  and 


Initial  Activities  49 

established  a  college  at  Halle.  At  last  in  1569  at  his 
own  request  he  was  relieved  of  his  office  of  provincial, 
which  he  had  held  for  thirteen  years;  in  1570  he  was 
court  preacher  of  the  Archduke  Ferdinand  II;  in  1575 
he  was  papal  envoy  to  Bavaria,  and  theologian  to  the 
papal  legate  at  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon.  He  introduced 
the  Sodality  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  at  Innsbruck,  and 
at  the  command  of  the  Pope  built  a  college  at  Freiburg, 
where  he  remained  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

For  years  Canisius  had  urged  his  superiors  and  had 
also  pleaded  at  the  Council  of  Trent  for  the  establish- 
ment of  colleges  of  writers  in  various  countries  to 
defend  the  Faith.  He  was  in  constant  touch  with  the 
great  printers  and  publishers  of  the  day,  such  as 
Plantin,  Cholm  and  Mayer;  he  brought  out  the  first 
reports  of  foreign  missions,  and  induced  the  town 
council  of  Freiburg  to  establish  a  printing-press.  All 
this  time  he  was  actively  writing,  and  the  list  of  his 
publications  covers  thirty-eight  quarto  pages  in  the 
"  Bibliotheque  des  ecrivains  dela  C.  de  Jesus."  He  was 
commissioned  by  Pius  V  to  refute  the  Centuriators  of 
Magdeburg  —  the  society  of  writers  who,  under  the 
inspiration  of  Flacius  Illyricus,  had  undertaken  to 
falsify  the  works  of  the  early  Fathers  of  the  Church, 
century  by  century,  so  as  to  furnish  a  historical  proof 
in  support  of  Luther's  errors.  In  1583  he  united  in 
one  volume  the  two  books  which  he  had  previously 
issued  in  1571  and  1577,  styling  them  "  Commentaria 
de  Verbi  corruptelis,"  having  in  the  meantime  published 
the  genuine  texts  of  Saints  Cyril  and  Leo. 

His  "  Catechism  "  was  his  most  famous  achievement. 
It  consisted  of  two  hundred  and  eleven,  and  later,  of 
two  hundred  and  twenty-two  doctrinal  questions,  and 
was  intended  chiefly  for  advanced  students;  but  there 
were  annexed  to  it  a  compendium  for  children,  and 
another  for  students  of  the  middle  and  lower  grades. 
4 


50  The  Jesuits 

It  is  recognized  as  a  masterpiece  even  by  Protestant 
writers  such  as  Ranke,  Mezel,  Kawerau  and  others. 
Two  hundred  editions  of  it  in  one  form  or  another 
were  published  during  his  lifetime  in  twelve  different 
languages.  "  I  know  my  Canisius  "  became  a 
synonym  in  Germany  for  "I  know  my  catechism." 
In  brief,  he  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  save 
Germany  for  the  Church,  and  he  is  regarded  as  another 
St.  Boniface.  He  died  on  November  21,  1597  and  was 
beatified  by  Pius  IX  on  April  17,  1864.  The  Catechism 
appears  to  have  been  first  suggested  by  Ferdinand 
I  to  Le  Jay  who  took  up  the  work  enthusiastically. 
But  instead  of  crowding  everything  into  one  volume, 
he  divided  it  into  three :  the  first,  a  summa  of  theology 
for  the  university;  the  second,  a  volume  for  priests 
engaged  in  the  ministry;  while  the  third  was  for  school 
teachers.  He  laid  the  matter  before  St.  Ignatius,  who 
assigned  the  first  part  to  Lainez  and  the  second  to 
Frusius,  then  rector  of  Vienna.  But  as  Frusius  died, 
and  Lainez  was  made  General  of  the  Society,  Canisius 
undertook  the  entire  work. 

Apparently,  it  was  from  Le  Jay  also  that  the  idea 
came  of  founding  the  Collegium  Germanicum  in  Rome, 
though  Cardinal  Morone  claims  it  as  his  conception. 
Le  Jay,  indeed,  had  discussed  the  matter  with  him, 
but  had  previously  made  a  much  more  serious  study 
of  the  question  with  Cardinal  Truchsess,  Archbishop 
of  Augsburg.  As  the  purpose  of  the  Collegium  was  to 
supply  a  thoroughly  educated  priesthood  to  Germany, 
Truchsess  could  appreciate  the  need  of  it  more  than 
Morone,  whose  ideas  about  the  need  of  good  works, 
the  vital  question  in  Germany  at  the  time,  were 
extremely  curious,  according  to  his  own  account  of 
a  stormy  interview  he  had  with  Salmeron  on  that 
topic.  He  reproached  Salmeron  for  making  too  much 
of  good  works.  Indeed  Morone  had  been  at  one  time 


Initial  Activities  51 

under  the  surveillance  of  the  Inquisition  on  account 
of  certain  utterances.  His  orthodoxy,  however,  must 
have  been  above  suspicion,  because  of  the  exalted 
position  he  occupied. 

Le  Jay  was  broken-hearted  when  Maurice  of  Saxony, 
the  leader  of  the  imperial  troops,  swung  his  whole 
army  over  to  the  very  Lutherans  whom  he  had  just 
defeated  at  Muhlberg.  The  awful  condition  of  religion 
in  the  Empire  preyed  upon  his  mind  to  such  a  degree 
that  he  died  at  Vienna  on  Aug.  6,  1552,  at  the  age  of 
fifty-two.  Canisius,  who  preached  the  funeral  oration, 
said  that  he  was  "  a  worthy  successor  of  Faber,  and  that 
his  instinct  was  so  correct  that  the  character  he  gave 
to  the  college  of  Vienna  over  which  he  presided  was 
adopted  as  the  model  throughout  Germany."  Ranke 
might  be  quoted  on  that  point  also.  He  points  out 
that  "at  the  beginning  of  1551  the  Jesuits  had  no 
fixed  place  in  Germany  —  Le  Jay  was  appointed 
rector  only  in  June  of  that  year  —  but  in  1566  they 
occupied  Bavaria,  Tyrol,  Franconia,  a  great  part  of 
the  Rhine  Province  and  Austria,  and  had  penetrated 
into  Hungary  and  Moravia.  It  was  the  first  durable 
anti- Protestant  check  that  Germany  had  received." 

Under  normal  conditions,  Spain  would  of  course, 
have  received  these  distinguished  sons  of  hers  with 
open  arms;  but,  unfortunately,  a  deplorable  state  of 
affairs  prevailed  in  the  highest  circles  both  of  Church 
and  State,  almost  as  open  and  as  shameless  as  in 
other  parts  of  Europe.  Princes  and  nobles  held  the 
titles  of  bishops  and  archbishops  and  appropriated  the 
revenues  of  dioceses.  That  alone  made  any  effort  in 
the  way  of  reform  impossible.  Added  to  this,  Boba- 
dilla's  indiscretion  in  attacking  the  policy  of  Charles  V 
in  Germany  had,  as  we  have  already  said,  predisposed 
that  monarch,  and  consequently  many  of  his  subjects, 
against  the  whole  Society;  but  as  the  Emperor  did 


52  The  Jesuits 

not  openly  interfere  with  them  they  established  colleges 
in  Barcelona,  Gandia,  Valencia  and  Alcala,  as  early 
as  1546;  but  two  years  later,  when  they  made  their 
appearance  in  Salamanca,  they  found  an  implacable 
foe  in  the  person  of  the  distinguished  Dominican 
theologian,  Melchior  Cano. 

From  the  pulpit  and  platform  and  in  the  press 
Cano  denounced  and  decried  the  new  religious,  not 
only  as  constituting  a  danger  to  the  Church,  but  as 
being  nothing  else  than  the  precursors  of  Antichrist. 
His  own  Master-General  wrote  a  letter  eulogizing  the 
Society  and  forbidding  his  brethren  to  attack  it;  but 
this  had  no  effect  on  Melchior,  nor  did  the  fact  that 
the  new  Order  was  approved  by  the  Pope  avail  to  keep 
him  quiet.  Finally,  in  order  to  mollify  him  he  was 
made  Bishop  of  the  Canaries,  but  he  actually  resigned 
that  see  in  order  to  return  to  the  attack.  His  hostility 
continued  not  only  till  his  death,  but  after  it;  for, 
before  he  departed,  he  left  in  the  hands  of  a  friend 
a  document  which  was  of  great  service  to  the  enemies 
of  the  Society  at  the  time  of  the  Suppression.  "  God 
grant,"  he  wrote,  "  that  I  may  not  be  a  Cassandra, 
who  was  believed  only  after  the  sack  of  Troy.  If  the 
religious  of  the  Society  continue  as  they  have  begun, 
there  may  come  a  time,  which  I  hope  God  will  avert, 
when  the  Kings  of  Europe  would  wish  to  resist  them 
but  will  be  unable  to  do  so."  One  of  the  reasons  of 
Cano's  hostility  to  the  Society  was  that  the  Fathers 
urged  Catholics  to  frequent  the  sacraments  (Suau, 
Vie  de  Borgia,  136).  This  opposition  of  Cano  was 
backed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  who  was 
Francis  Borgia's  uncle.  Bands  of  street  children  carry- 
ing banners  on  which  hideous  devils  were  painted 
marched  to  the  new  church  of  the  Society  and  pelted 
it  with  stones.  Then  the  mob  drove  the  luckless 
Fathers  out  of  the  city;  when  Borgia's  sister  sheltered 


Initial  Activities  53 

the  exiles  in  her  castle  her  uncle,  the  archbishop, 
excommunicated  her.  But  that  was  the  way  of  the 
world  in  those  days.  Even  the  illustrious  Cardinal 
Carranza  was  kept  in  the  prison  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  for  seventeen  years,  because  of  something 
discovered  in  his  writings  by  his  brother  Dominican 
Melchior  Cano  (Suau,  op.  tit.,  136). 

Little  by  little,  however,  the  prejudices  were  dissi- 
pated, and  both  Alcala  and  Salamanca  called  Strada 
to  lecture  in  their  halls.  Nevertheless,  each  new  success 
only  raised  a  fresh  storm.  Thus  it  was  bad  enough 
when  the  rector  of  the  University  of  Salamanca, 
Anthony  of  Cordova,  who  was  just  about  to  be  made 
a  cardinal,  entered  the  Society;  but  the  excitement 
became  intense  when,  in  1550,  Francis  Borgia,  who 
was  Duke  of  Gandia,  Viceroy  of  Catalonia,  a  friend 
of  the  Emperor,  a  soldier  who  had  distinguished 
himself  in  the  invasion  of  Provence,  and  whose  future 
usefulness  was  reckoned  upon  for  the  service  of  his 
country,  let  it  be  known  that  he,  too,  was  going  to 
become  a  Jesuit.  To  prevent  it,  the  Pope  was  urged 
to  make  him  a  Cardinal,  but  Borgia,  who  was  then  in 
Rome,  fled  back  to  Spain.  When,  however,  he  finally 
appeared  as  a  member  of  the  Order,  houses  and  colleges 
were  erected  wherever  he  wished  to  have  them:  at 
Granada,  Valladolid,  Saragossa,  Medina,  San  Lucar, 
Monterey,  Burgos,  Valencia,  Murcia,  Placentia  and 
Seville.  In  1556  Charles  V  was  succeeded  by  Philip  II, 
who  asked  that  the  cardinal's  hat  should  be  given  to 
Borgia,  but  the  honor  was  again  refused.  On  three 
other  occasions  the  same  offers  and  refusals  were 
repeated. 

By  the  time  Francis  Borgia  became  General  of  the 
Order  it  had  already  developed  into  eighteen  provinces, 
with  one  hundred  and  thirty  establishments,  and  had 
a  register  df  three  thousand  five  hundred  members. 


54  The  Jesuits 

Besides  attempting  to  convert  the  Vaudois  heretics, 
the  Society  maintained  the  missions  of  Brazil  and  the 
Indies  and  established  new  ones  in  Peru  and  Mexico; 
by  the  help  of  the  famous  Pedro  Menendez,  who  is  the 
special  object  of  hatred  on  the  part  of  American  Protest- 
ant historians,  it  sent  the  first  missionaries  to  what  is 
now  Florida  in  the  United  States.  Segura  and  his 
companions  were  put  to  death  on  the  Rappahannock ; 
and  Martinez  was  killed  further  down  the  coast,  while 
Sanchez,  a  former  rector  of  Alcala,  reached  Vera  Cruz 
in  Mexico  in  1572  with  twelve  companions  to  look 
after  the  Spaniards  and  natives  and  to  care  for  the 
unfortunate  blacks  whom  the  Spaniards  were  importing 
from  Africa. 

When  Pius  V  was  elected  Pope,  there  was  a  general 
fear  that  he  would  suppress  the  Society;  but  the 
Pontiff  set  all  doubts  at  rest  when,  on  his  way  to  be 
crowned  at  St.  John  Lateran,  he  called  Borgia  to  his 
side  and  embraced  him.  He  also  made  Salmeron  and 
Toletus  his  official  preachers,  and  gave  the  Jesuits 
the  work  of  translating  the  "  Catechism "  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  and  of  publishing  a  new  edition  of 
the  Bible.  He  was,  however,  about  to  revoke  the 
Society's  exemption  from  the  office  of  choir;  but 
Borgia  induced  him  to  change  his  mind  on  that  point, 
and  even  obtained  a  perpetual  exemption  from  the 
public  recitation  of  the  Office,  as  well  as  the  revocation 
of  the  restriction  of  the  priesthood  to  the  professed 
of  the  Society.  Moreover,  when  there  was  danger  of 
a  Turkish  invasion,  Borgia  was  sent  with  the  Pope's 
nephew  to  Spain  and  France  to  organize  a  league 
in  defence  of  Christendom,  while  Toletus  accompanied 
another  cardinal  to  Germany. 

Philip  II  had  asked  for  missionaries  to  evangelize 
Peru,  and  hence  at  the  end  of  March,  1568,  Portillo 
and  seven  Jesuits  landed  at  Callao,  and  proceeding  to 


Initial  Activities  55 

Lima  established  a  church  and  college  there  on  a 
magnificent  scale.  It  was  easy  to  do  so,  however, 
for  the  Spanish  colonists  were  rolling  in  wealth.  At 
the  same  time,  the  Indians  and  negroes  were  not 
neglected.  In  1569  twelve  new  missionaries  arrived, 
and  one  of  them,  Alonzo  de  Barzana,  to  the  amazement 
of  every  one,  preached  in  the  language  of  the  Incas  as 
soon  as  he  came  ashore.  He  had  been  studying  it 
every  moment  of  the  long  journey  from  Spain.  In 
1574  a  college  was  established  at  Cuzco,  in  an  old 
palace  of  the  Incas,  and  another  in  the  city  of 
La  Paz. 

At  this  stage  of  the  work  the  first  domestic  trouble 
in  the  New  World  presented  itself.  Portillo,  the  pro- 
vincial, was  admitting  undesirable  candidates  into  the 
Society,  and  placing  the  professed  in  parishes,  thus 
flinging  them  into  the  midst  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
turmoil  which  then  prevailed.  In  spite  of  his  abilities, 
however,  he  was  promptly  recalled  to  Spain.  It  is 
very  gratifying  to  learn  that  outside  the  domestic 
precincts,  no  one  ever  knew  the  reason  of  this  drastic 
measure.  Freedom  from  parochial  obligations  left  the 
Fathers  time  for  their  normal  work,  and  they  forthwith 
established  schools  in  almost  every  city  and  town  of 
Peru.*  The  training  school  on  Lake  Titicaca,  especially, 
was  a  very  wise  and  far-seeing  enterprise,  for  there 
the  missionaries  could  devote  themselves  exclusively 
to  the  study  of  the  native  language  and  to  historical, 
literary  and  scientific  studies.  The  result  was  that 
some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  period  issued 
from  that  educational  centre.  It  is  said  that  the 
printing-press  they  brought  over  from  Europe  was  the 
first  one  to  be  set  up  in  that  part  of  the  New  World. 
Titicaca  flourished  as  late  as  1767,  but  at  that  time 
Charles  III  expelled  the  Jesuits  from  Peru  and  Titicaca 
ceased  to  be. 


56  The  Jesuits 

The  Society  had  a  long  and  desperate  struggle, 
before  it  could  gain  an  educational  foothold  in  France. 
Possibly  it  was  a  preparation  for  the  future  glory  it 
was  to  win  there.  Its  principal  enemies  were  the 
University  of  Paris  and,  incidentally,  the  Parliament, 
which  came  under  the  influence  of  the  doctors  of  the 
Sorbonne.  The  first  band  of  Jesuits  arrived  under  the 
leadership  of  Domenech,  who  had  been  a  canon  in 
Spain  but  had  relinquished  his  rich  benefice  to  enter 
the  Society  —  an  act  which  seemed  so  supremely  foolish 
in  the  eyes  of  his  friends  that  they  accused  Ignatius 
of  bewitching  him.  Later,  he  became  a  sort  of  Saint 
Vincent  de  Paul  for  Italy.  He  found  Palermo  swarming 
with  throngs  of  half-naked  and  starving  children,  and 
immediately  built  an  asylum  for  them.  He  estab- 
lished hospitals,  Magdalen  asylums,  refuges  for  the 
aged,  and  went  round  the  city  holding  out  his  hand 
for  alms  to  repair  the  dilapidated  convents  of  nuns, 
whom  the  constant  wars  had  left  homeless  and  hungry. 
Giving  the  Spiritual  Exercises  was  one  of  his  special 
occupations. 

In  the  group,  also,  was  Oviedo,  the  future  Patriarch 
of  Abyssinia,  who  was  to  spend  his  life  in  the  wilds 
of  Africa.  There  too  was  Strada,  orator,  poet  and  his- 
torian, who  was  to  be  one  of  the  most  illustrious  men  of 
his  time;  he  taught  rhetoric  for  fifteen  years  in  the 
Roman  College,  was  the  official  preacher  and  the  inti- 
mate friend  of  Popes  Clement  VIII  and  Paul  V,  and  wrote 
a  "  History  of  the  Wars  of  Flanders,"  which  met  with 
universal  applause.  Finally,  there  was  the  famous 
young  Ribadeneira,  then  only  a  boy  of  fourteen;  he 
had  left  one  of  the  most  brilliant  courts  of  Europe — 
that  of  Cardinal  Farnese,  the  brother  of  princes  and 
popes  —  and  later  became  famous  as  a  distinguished 
Latinist,  a  successful  diplomat,  the  chosen  orator  at 
the  inaugural  ceremonies  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum, 


Initial  Activities  57 

an  eminent  preacher  at  Louvain  and  Brussels,  and  an 
envoy  to  Mary  Tudor  in  her  last  illness.  He  was 
provincial,  visitor  and  assistant  under  Borgia  and 
Lainez,  the  great  champion  of  the  Society  in  Spain 
against  Vasquez  and  his  fellow-conspirators,  and  an 
author  whose  works  in  his  native  Castilian  are  ranked 
among  the  classics  of  the  language. 

Their  staunch  friend  was  du  Prat,  the  Bishop  of 
Clermont,  who  gave  them  the  palace  which  had  been, 
up  to  that  time,  his  residence  when  visiting  the 
metropolis.  Before  that  shelter  was  assured  to  them, 
they  had  lived  as  boarders,  first  in  the  College  des 
Tresoriers  and  then  in  the  College  des  Lombards, 
not  as  Jesuits,  but  as  ordinary  students  whose 
similarity  of  taste  in  matters  of  piety  seemed  to 
the  outside  world  to  have  drawn  them  together.  Of 
course,  their  real  character  soon  became  known,  and 
then  their  troubles  began.  A  college  was  attempted 
at  Tournon  in  the  following  year,  with  Auger  as  rector, 
but  the  civil  war  was  raging  and  before  a  twelve- 
month, Adrets,  the  most  bloodthirsty  monster  of  the 
Huguenot  rebellion,  whose  favorite  amusement  was  to 
make  his  prisoners  leap  off  the  ramparts  to  the  rocks 
below,  put  an  end  to  everything  Catholic  in  Tournon. 

Crefineau-Joly  is  of  opinion  that  the  recognition 
of  the  Society  in  France  was  retarded  by  its  refusal 
to  admit  the  famous  Guillaume  Postel  in  its  ranks. 
It  seems  absurd,  but  it  happened  just  then  that  France 
had  gone  mad  about  Postel;  and  Marguerite  de 
Valois  used  to  speak  of  him  as  the  "  Wonder  of  the 
World."  He  was  indeed  a  very  remarkable  personage. 
Though  only  self-instructed,  he  knew  almost  every 
language;  he  had  plunged  in  the  depths  of  rabbinical 
and  astrological  lore;  to  obtain  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  Orient,  he  had  accompanied  the  Sultan  in  an 
expedition  against  the  Persians;  he  had  spent  vast 


58  The  Jesuits 

sums  of  money  in  purchasing  rare  manuscripts;  he  was 
sought  for  by  all  the  universities;  he  drew  immense 
crowds  to  his  lectures,  and  wrote  books  about  every 
conceivable  subject,  but  at  the  same  time  with  all  his 
genius  he  was  undoubtedly  insane.  So  that  when  he 
went  to  Rome  and  told  about  his  spiritual  communica- 
tions with  the  mythical  Mere  Jeanne,  and  how  he 
proposed  to  unite  the  whole  human  race,  by  the  power 
of  the  sword  or  the  word,  under  the  banner  of  the 
Pope  and  the  King  of  France,  who,  he  said,  was  a  lineal 
descendant  of  the  eldest  son  of  Noe,  the  perspicacity 
of  a  Loyola  was  not  needed  to  understand  his  mental 
condition.  His  rejection  ought  to  have  been  a  recom- 
mendation rather  than  a  reproach.  ' 
When  established  in  their  new  house,  the  Jesuits  re- 
ceived scholars  and  asked  for  affiliation  to  the  university, 
but  the  request  was  peremptorily  refused,  for  the  alleged 
reason  that  they  were  neither  secular  priests  nor  friars, 
but  a  nondescript  and  novel  organization  whose  purpose 
was  mysterious  and  suspicious.  Besides,  they  were 
all  Spaniards  —  a  genuine  difficulty  at  a  time  when 
Charles  V  and  Francis  I  were  threatening  to  go  to  war 
with  each  other.  It  happened  also  that  the  Archbishop 
of  Paris,  du  Bellay,  was  their  avowed  enemy;  he 
denounced  them  as  corrupters  of  youth,  and  expelled 
them  from  the  little  chapel  of  Saint-Germain-des- 
Pres,  which  a  Benedictine  abbot  had  put  at  their 
disposal.  Finally,  when  the  war  seemed  imminent,  the 
foreigners  were  sent  away,  some  to  Lyons  and  some 
to  Louvain.  For  a  time,  those  who  remained  were 
shielded  by  the  papal  nuncio  at  Paris,  but  he  was 
recalled.  Then  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  appeared  as  their  protectors. 
They  had  even  secured  the  grant  of  a  charter  for  the 
college  and  were  very  hopeful  of  opening  it,  but,  as  the 
concession  had  to  be  passed  on  by  the.  Parliament 


Initial  Activities  59 

before  it  became  effective,  they  were  as  badly  off  as 
ever.  Besides  this,  their  lack  of  friends  had  left  the 
college  without  funds,  for  the  teaching  given  in  their 
house  was  gratuitous  —  a  practice  which  formed  the 
chief  educational  grievance  alleged  by  the  university. 
Evidently  a  staff  of  clever  professors  who  taught  for 
nothing  constituted  a  menace  to  all  other  institutions. 
Conditions  became  so  desperate  that  at  one  time  there 
were  only  four  pupils  at  Clermont.  Nevertheless,  with 
an  amazing  confidence  in  the  future  success  of  the 
Society  in  France,  it  was  just  at  this  moment  that  St. 
Ignatius  established  the  French  province,  and  sent  the 
beloved  Pasquier  Brouet  as  superior.  j 

Brouet  had  already  given  proofs  of  his  ability  in 
dealing  with  difficulties;  for  with  Salmeron  he  had 
faced  the  danger  of  death  in  Ireland,  and  when  there 
was  question  of  creating  a  Patriarch  of  Abyssinia  or 
Ethiopia,  another  place  of  prospective  martyrdom,  he 
was  the  first  choice,  though  Oviedo  was  ultimately 
selected,  probably  because  of  his  nationality.  Shortly 
after  his  arrival,  a  new  college  was  attempted  at  Billom, 
but  Father  de  la  Goutte  who  was  appointed  rector  was 
captured  by  the  Turks  and  died  on  an  island  off  the 
coast  of  Tunis.  A  substitute,  however,  was  appointed, 
and  in  a  few  years  the  college  had  five  hundred  students 
on  its  roll.  Applications  were  made  also  for  establish- 
ments at  Montarges,  Perigueux  and  elsewhere.  In  1 560 
the  first  friend  of  the  Society  in  France,  the  Bishop 
of  Clermont,  died,  leaving  rich  bequests  in  his  will  to 
the  colleges  at  Paris  and  Billom,  but  they  were  disal- 
lowed by  the  courts  because  the  Society  was  not  an 
authorized  corporation.  For,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
not  only  the  sanction  of  Henry  II  but  also  that  of 
Francis  II  had  been  given,  yet  the  university  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris  had  contrived  by  all  sorts  of 
devices  to  delay  the  complete  ofncialjrecognition  of  the 


60  The  Jesuits 

establishment.  In  the  long  fight  that  ensued  against 
this  injustice,  Father  Cogordan,  who  was  the  procurator 
of  the  province,  distinguished  himself  by  his  resource- 
fulness in  facing  and  mastering  the  various  situations. 

The  opposition  finally  collapsed  in  a  very  dramatic 
fashion.  Charles  IX  was  on  the  throne,  but  the  reins 
of  government  were  in  the  hands  of  his  mother, 
Catherine  de'  Medici,  who,  contrary  to  the  express  wish 
of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  had  consented  to  the  demands 
of  the  Huguenots  for  a  general  assembly,  where  the 
claims  of  the  new  religion  might  be  presented  to 
the  representative  Catholics  of  the  kingdom.  The 
Colloquy,  as  it  was  called,  took  place  at  Poissy  in  1561. 
The  experience  of  Germany  in  permitting  such  gather- 
ings had  shown  very  clearly  that,  instead  of  conducing 
to  religious  peace,  they  only  widened  the  breach  between 
Catholics  and  Protestants.  For  the  calm  statement 
of  dogmatic  differences  was  ignored  by  the  appellants, 
and  the  sessions  were  purposely  turned  into  a  series 
of  disorderly  and  virulent  denunciations  and  recrimina- 
tions. 

The  Colloquy  in  this  instance  was  very  imposing. 
The  queen  mother,  Charles  IX  and  the  whole  court 
were  present.  There  were  five  cardinals,  forty  bishops 
and  a  throng  of  learned  divines  from  all  parts  of 
France.  Cardinal  de  Tournon  presided;  Hopital  was 
the  spokesman  for  the  crown;  while  the  King  of 
Navarre  and  the  Prince  de  Conde  represented  the 
Huguenot  party.  Among  the  Protestant  ministers 
were  Theodore  Beza  and  Peter  Martyr,  the  ex-friar. 
Eight  days  had  gone  by  in  useless  squabbles  when  into 
the  assembly  came  James  Lainez,  who  was  then  General 
of  the  Society,  and  had  been  sent  thither  by  the  Pope 
to  protest  against  the  Colloquy.  Beza  had  already 
been  annihilated  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  and 
Peter  Martyr  was  speaking  when  Lainez  entered. 


Initial  Activities  61 

The  great  man  who  had  held  the  Council  of  Trent 
enthralled  by  his  leaning  and  eloquence  listened  for  a 
while  to  his  unworthy  adversary  and  then  arose. 
Addressing  the  queen,  he  said:  "  It  may  be  unseemly 
for  a  foreigner  to  lift  his  voice  in  this  presence,  but  as 
the  Church  is  restricted  to  no  nation,  it  cannot  be  out 
of  place  for  me  to  give  utterance  to  the  thoughts  that 
present  themselves  to  my  mind  on  this  occasion.  I 
will  first  advert  to  the  danger  of  these  assemblies  and 
will  especially  address  myself  to  what  Friar  Peter  and 
his  colleague  have  advanced." 

The  use  of  the  name  "  friar  "  publicly  pilloried  the 
apostate.  He  writhed  under  it,  but  he  could  not 
escape.  It  recurred  again  and  again  as  the  tactics  of 
Beza  and  his  associates  were  laid  bare.  Then,  turning 
to  the  queen,  Lainez  said:  "  The  first  means  to  be 
taken  to  avoid  the  deceits  of  the  enemy  is  for  your 
Majesty  to  remember  that  it  is  not  within  the  compe- 
tency either  of  your  Majesty  or  any  other  temporal 
prince  to  discuss  and  decide  matters  pertaining  to  the 
Faith.  This  belongs  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  and  the 
Councils  of  the  Church.  Much  more  so  is  this  the 
case  when,  as  at  present,  the  General  Council  of  Trent 
is  in  session.  If  these  teachers  of  the  new  religion  are 
sincerely  seeking  the  truth,  let  them  go  there  to  find  it." 
After  adding  his  authority  to  the  splendid  reply  already 
uttered  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  Lainez  said: 
"  As  Friar  Peter  has  asked  us  for  a  confession  of  faith, 
I  confess  the  Catholic  Faith,  for  which  I  am  ready  to 
die;  and  I  implore  Your  Majesties, both  you,  Madame, 
and  your  son,  the  Most  Christian  King,  to  safeguard 
your  temporal  kingdom  if  you  wish  to  gain  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  If  on  the  contrary  you  care  less  for  the 
fear  and  love  of  God  than  the  fear  and  love  of  man, 
are  you  not  running  the  risk  of  losing  your  earthly  as 
well  as  your  heavenly  kingdom?  I  trust  that  this 


62  The  Jesuits 

calamity  will  not  fall  upon  you.  I  expect,  on  the 
contrary,  that  God  in  his  goodness  will  grant  you  and 
your  son  the  grace  of  perseverance  in  your  faith,  and 
will  not  permit  this  illustrious  nobility  now  before  me, 
and  this  most  Christian  kingdom,  which  has  been  such 
an  example  to  the  world,  ever  to  abandon  the  Catholic 
Faith  or  be  defiled  by  the  pestilential  touch  of  these 
new  sects  and  new  religions." 

This  discourse  was  a  particularly  daring  act,  on  the 
part  of  Lainez.  According  to  a  recent  authority 
(Martin,  Gallicanisme  et  la  Reforme,  28,  note  4),  Du 
Ferrier,  the  government  delegate  at  Trent,  circulated 
a  note  which  said  among  other  things:  "As  for 
Pius  IV  we  withdraw  from  his  rule ;  whatever  decisions 
he  may  have  made  we  reject,  spit  back  at  him 
(respuimus)  and  despise.  We  scorn  and  renounce  him 
as  Vicar  of  Christ,  Head  of  the  Church  and  successor 
of  Peter."  Far  from  reprehending  his  ambassador  for 
these  furious  words,  Charles  IX  and,  of  course, 
Catherine  praised  the  ambassador  unreservedly. 
Catherine  had  busied  herself  previous  to  this  in  trying 
to  persuade  the  different  governments  to  have  a 
council  in  which  the  Pope  should  have  nothing  to  say, 
one  whose  object  would  be,  not  to  define  dogma  or 
enforce  discipline,  but,  to  draw  up  a  formula  of  recon- 
ciliation which  would  satisfy  Protestants.  Even  the 
French  bishops,  though  admitting  that  the  Pope  was 
a  supreme  power  in  the  Church,  denied  that  he  had 
supreme  power  over  it,  and  refused  to  acknowledge 
"  his  plenitude  of  power  to  feed,  rule  and  govern  the 
Universal  Church."  The  separation  of  France  from 
the  Church  was  at  that  time  openly  advocated.  Since 
such  were  the  conditions  in  France  at  that  time,  it  is 
clear  that  Catherine  never  expected  an  attack  of  the 
kind  that  Lainez  treated  her  to.  She  burst  into  tears 
and  withdrew  from  the  Colloquy.  There  was  never 


Initial  Activities  63 

another  public  session.  Cretineau-Joly  says  that 
Lainez  told  Conde:  "  The  queen's  tears  are  a  bit  of 
comedy;  "  but  such  an  utterance  from  a  man  of  the 
character  of  Lainez  and  in  such  surroundings,  where 
the  insult  would  have  been  immediately  reported  to 
the  queen,  is  simply  inconceivable.  He  could  never 
have  been  guilty  of  such  an  unpardonable  indis- 
cretion. 

Meantime,  the  bishops  and  archbishops  of  France 
had  been  meeting  during  the  recesses  of  the  Colloquy 
to  consider  the  question  of  legislation  for  the  Jesuit 
colleges.  With  the  exception  of  Cardinal  de  Chatillon 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  they  were  all  anxious  to 
put  an  end  to  the  proscription  to  which  the  Society  had 
been  so  long  and  so  unjustly  subjected.  As  it 
happened  that  Cardinal  de  Chatillon,  the  brother  of 
the  famous  Admiral  Coligny,  the  patron  saint  of  the 
French  Calvinists,  was  just  then  on  the  point  of  aposta- 
tizing and  taking  a  wife  and  as  the  scandal  was  of 
common  knowledge  it  evidently  would  not  do  for  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris  to  be  ranged  on  his  side.  That 
and,  probably,  the  facl  of  his  being  tired  out  by  the 
long  fight  which  had  been  protracted  only  because  of 
his  natural  stubbornness,  made  him  give  way,  and  the 
Society  was  legalized  in  France.  No  doubt  the 
presence  of  Lainez  and  his  closing  up  of  the  Colloquy 
by  his  audacious  discourse  had  helped  largely  to  bring 
about  that  result.  Some  disagreeable  restrictions  were 
appended  to  the  grant,  it  is  true,  but  they  were  can- 
celled a  few  years  later  by  a  royal  decree.  Parliament 
finally  yielded  and  signed  the  charter  of  the  College  on 
January  14,  1562.  Lainez  saw  the  queen  frequently 
after  the  Colloquy,  and  remained  in  France  for  some 
time,  striving  unweariedly  to  win  back  to  the  Faith 
such  men  as  Conde,  the  King  of  Navarre  and  others, 
and  continuing  to  warn  the  queen  that  her  unwise 


64  The  Jesuits 

toleration  would  result  in  disaster  to  the  realm. 
Unfortunately  he  was  not  heeded. 

While  all  this  was  going  on,  another  college  had  been 
established  at  Pamiers,  which  was  in  the  heretical 
territory  of  Navarre.  Its  founders  were  none  others 
than  the  rector  of  the  Roman  College,  Jean  Pelletier, 
and  Edmond  Auger.  But  in  the  beginning  the  inhabit- 
ants were  suspicious  and  refused  the  commonest 
hospitality  to  the  new  comers,  so  that  their  first 
dwelling  had  the  advantage  of  being  like  the  Stable 
of  Bethlehem  —  a  hut  with  no  doors  and  no  windows. 
Finally,  however,  their  sermons  in  the  churches  capti- 
vated the  people  and  the  "  Jezoists,"  as  they  were 
called,  succeeded  in  getting  a  respectable  house  and 
beginning  their  classes.  This  was  in  1559,  but  before 
the  end  of  1561  the  "  Jezoists  "  were  expelled  by  the 
excited  Huguenots,  and  were  compelled  to  take  refuge 
in  Toulouse. 

The  Edmond  Auger  just  mentioned  was  perhaps  the 
most  eloquent  man  of  that  period  in  France.  He  was 
called  the  Chrysostom  of  his  country.  Wherever  he 
went,  crowds  flocked  to  hear  him,  fanatical  Calvinists 
as  well  as  devoted  Catholics.  His  first  sermon  was  in 
Valence,  where  the  bishop  had  just  apostatized  and 
the  Huguenots  were  in  complete  possession.  A  furious 
outbreak  resulted,  and  he  was  seized  and  sentenced  to 
be  burned  to  death.  While  standing  at  the  stake,  he 
harangued  the  people  before  the  torch  was  applied, 
and  so  captivated  the  mob  that  fhey  clamored  for  his 
release.  His  devotedness  to  the  sick  in  a  pestilence 
at  Lyons  won  the  popular  heart  and  a  college  was 
asked  for.  At  various  times  he  was  chaplain  of  the 
troops,  confessor  of  Henry  IV,  rector  and  provincial; 
but  unfortunately  he  was  so  outspoken  in  his  denun- 
ciation of  the  League  that  the  people  of  Lyons,  who 
once  admired  him,  were  wrought  up  to  fury  by  his 


Initial  Activities  65 

utterances  on  the  political  situation,  and  were  on  the 
point  of  throwing  him  into  the  Rh6ne.  His  unwise 
zeal  had  thus  seriously  injured  the  Society. 

When  the  council  of  Trent  had  concluded  its  sessions, 
Canisius  was  sent  back  to  Germany  by  the  Pope  to 
see  that  the  decrees  were  promulgated  and  enforced. 
He  labored  for  five  years  to  accomplish  this  task,  but 
failed  completely.  With  the  exception  of  some  bishops 
like  Truchsess  of  Augsburg,  very  few  paid  any  attention 
to  the  Pope's  wish,  the  reason  being  that  they  were 
mostly  scions  of  the  nobility,  who  were  accustomed 
to  live  in  luxury  and  had  adopted  the  ecclesiastical 
profession  solely  because  of  the  rich  revenues  of  the 
sees  to  which  their  relatives  had  had  them  appointed. 
At  that  very  time  fourteen  of  them,  it  is  said  on  the 
best  authority,  were  wearing  their  mitres  without  even 
having  notified  the  Pope  of  their  election  or  asking 
his  approbation.  They,  more  than  Martin  Luther, 
were  responsible  for  the  loss  of  Germany.  Their  lives 
were  such  that  Canisius  forbade  his  priests  to  accept 
the  position  of  confessor  to  any  of  them.  Of  course, 
such  men  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  papal  decree  about 
establishing  diocesan  seminaries ;  and  those  who  desired 
them  were  prevented  by  their  canons,  some  of  whom 
were  not  even  priests.  It  was  for  this  reason  that 
Canisius  begged  the  Pope  to  establish  burses  in  foreign 
seminaries,  where  worthy  ecclesiastics  might  be  trained 
whose  lives  would  be  in  such  contrast  with  the  general 
depravity  and  ignorance  of  the  clergy  that  the  bishops 
would  perhaps  be  shamed  out  of  their  apathy. 

The  establishment  of  burses,  however,  was  only 
a  temporary  expedient ;  for  the  few  secular  priests  they 
might  furnish  could  scarcely  support  the  strain  to 
which  they  would  be  subjected  in  the  terrible  isolation 
which  their  small  number  would  entail.  They  would 
not  have  the  compact  organization  of  a  religious  order 
5 


66  The  Jesuits 

to  keep  them  steady,  and  yet  they  would  be  the  victims 
of  the  same  kind  of  persecution  as  Canisius  and  his 
associates  had  to  undergo.  From  this  difficulty  arose 
the  idea  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum  already  referred 
to,  an  establishment  in  Rome  under  the  direction  of  the 
Jesuits,  to  which  young  Germans  distinguished  for 
their  intellectual  ability  and  virtue  could  be  sent  and 
trained  to  be  apostles  in  their  native  land.  It  was  the 
Collegium  Germanicum  that  saved  to  the  Faith  what 
was  left  of  Germany  and  won  back  much  that  was  lost.' 
"  The  German  College  at  Rome,"  said  a  Protestant 
preacher  in  1594  (Nothgedrungene  Erinnerungen,  Bl.  8), 
"  is  a  hotbed  singularly  favorable  for  developing  the 
worst  kind  of  Jesuitry.  Our  young  Germans  are 
educated  there  gratuitously;  and  at  the  end  of  their 
studies  they  are  sent  home  to  restore  papistry  to  its 
former  place  and  to  fight  for  it  with  all  their  might. 
You  find  them  exercising  the  ministry  in  a  great  number 
of  collegiate  churches  and  parishes.  They  become  the 
advisers  "of  bishops  and  even  archbishops ;  and  we  see 
these  Jesuits  under  our  very  eyes  defending  the 
Catholic  cause  with  such  zeal  that  we  Evangelicals  may 
well  ask  ourselves  in  what  lands  and  in  what  towns 
such  fervent  zeal  for  the  beloved  Gospel  is  found 
among  our  own  party.  They  seduce  so  many  souls 
from  us  that  it  is  too  distressing  even  to  enumerate 
them."  Martin  Chemnitz,  the  Protestant  theologian, 
said  that  if  the  Jesuits  had  done  nothing  but  found 
the  German  College,  they  would  deserve  to  be  regarded 
for  that  one  achievement  as  the  most  dangerous  enemy 
of  Lutheranism.  "  These  young  men,"  said  another 
Protestant  controversialist  in  1593,  "  are  like  their 
teachers  in  diabolical  cunning,  in  hypocritical  piety, 
and  in  the  idolatrous  practices  which  they  propagate 
among  the  people.  They  preach  frequently,  pre- 
tending to  be  good  Christians,  they  frequent  hospitals 


Initial  Activities  67 

and  visit  the  sick  at  home,  all  out  of  a  pure  hypocrisy 
saturating  the  very  hides  of  these  wretches.  They  are 
again  persuading  the  simple  and  credulous  people 
to  return  to  their  damnable  papistry  "  (Janssen,  op. 
cit.,  IX,  323,  sqq.). 

Echsfeld,  Erfurt,  Aschaffenburg,  Mayence,  Coblentz, 
Treves,  Wurzburg,  Spires  and  other  places  soon  felt 
the  effects  of  the  zeal  of  these  students  of  the  Collegium 
Germanicum.  Their  manner  of  life  meant  hardship 
and  danger  of  every  kind;  assaults  by  degenerate 
Catholics  and  infuriated  heretics;  vigils  in  miserable 
huts  and  pest-laden  hospitals,  resulting  sometimes  in 
sickness  and  violent  death;  but  "these  messengers 
of  the  devil,"  as  the  preachers  called  them,  kept 
at  their  work  and  soon  won  back  countless  numbers 
of  their  countrymen  to  the  Faith.  Similar  establish- 
ments also  grew  up  at  Braunsberg,  Dillingen,  Fulda, 
Munich  and  Vienna.  Representatives  of  other  religious 
orders  entered  into  the  movement  and  gave  it  new  life 
and  vigor.  Janssen  (IX,  313)  informs  us  that  the 
foundation  of  seminaries  for  poor  students  also  was  due 
to  Canisius  and  his  fellow-workers.  At  their  sug- 
gestion Albert  V  founded  the  Gregorianum  at  Munich 
in  1574;  and  Ingolstadt,  Wurzburg,  Innsbruck,  Halle, 
Gratz  and  Prague  soon  had  similar  establishments. 
As  early  as  1559  Canisius  assumed  the  responsibility 
for  two  hundred  poor  students,  and  by  having  them 
live  in  common  was  able  to  supply  all  their  needs. 
After  each  of  his  sermons  in  the  cathedral,  he  went 
around  among  the  great  personages  assembled  to  hear 
him,  to  ask  for  alms  to  keep  up  his  establishments. 
Father  Voth,  following  his  example  forty  years  later, 
collected  1400  florins  in  a  single  year  for  the  same 
purpose. 

The  work  of  regeneration  was  not  restricted  to  the 
foundation  of  ecclesiastical  seminaries.  Janssen  (1.  c.) 


68  The  Jesuits 

gives  us  an  entire  page  of  the  names  of  colleges  taken 
from  the  "  Litterae  annuae,"  in  some  of  which  there 
were  nine  hundred,  one  thousand,  and  even  thirteen 
hundred  scholars.  Between  1612  and  1625  Germany 
had  one  hundred  Jesuit  colleges.  In  all  of  them  were 
established  sodalities  the  members  of  which  besides 
performing  their  own  religious  exercises  in  the  chapel, 
visited  the  hospitals,  prisons  and  camps  and  performed 
other  works  of  charity  and  zeal.  On  their  rosters  are 
seen  the  names  of  men  who  attained  eminence  in 
Church  and  State  —  kings,  princes,  cardinals,  soldiers, 
scholars,  etc.  These  sodalities  had  also  established 
intimate  relations  with  similar  organizations  all  over 
Europe.  Naturally,  this  intense  activity  aroused  the 
fury  of  the  heretics.  Calumnies  of  every  kind  were 
invented;  and  in  1603  a  preacher  in  Styria  announced 
that  the  most  execrable  and  sanguinary  plots  were 
being  formed  to  drown  the  whole  Empire  in  blood  in 
order  to  nullify  the  teaching  of  the  Evangel.  "  O  poor 
Roman  Empire!  "  he  exclaimed,  "  your  only  enemies, 
the  only  enemies  of  the  Emperor,  of  the  nation,  of 
religion  are  the  Jesuits."  Janssen  adds:  "  The  facts 
told  a  different  story." 

Father  Peter  Pazmany  figures  at  this  period  in  a 
notable  fashion.  He  was  a  Hungarian  from  Nagy 
Varad,  also  known  as  Grosswardein.  His  parents  were 
Calvinists,  but  at  the  age  of  sixteen  Peter  became  a 
Catholic  and  entered  the  Society  at  Rome,  where  he 
was  a  pupil  of  such  scholars  as  Bellarmine  and  Vasquez. 
He  taught  in  the  college  of  Gratz,  which  had 
been  founded  by  the  Jesuits  in  1573  with  theological 
and  philosophical  faculties.  The  Archduke  Ferdinand 
enriched  it  with  new  buildings  and  furnished  it  with 
ample  revenues,  giving  it  also  ecclesiastical  supremacy 
in  Carinthia  and  other  estates  of  the  crown.  Pazmany 
became  the  apostle  of  his  countrymen,  both  by  his 


Initial  Activities  69 

books  and  his  preaching.  He  was  a  master  in  his 
native  tongue,  says  Ranke  (History  of  the  Popes,  IV, 
124),  and  his  spiritual  and  learned  work  "  Kalaus," 
produced  an  irresistible  sensation.  Endowed  with 
a  ready  and  captivating  eloquence,  he  is  said  to 
have  personally  converted  fifty  of  the  most  distin- 
guished families,  one  of  which  ejected  twenty  ministers 
from  their  parishes  and  replaced  them  by  as  many 
Catholic  priests.  The  government  was  also  swung 
into  line;  the  Catholics  had  the  majority  in  the  Diet 
of  1625,  and  an  Esterhazy  was  made  Palatine. 
Pazmany  was  offered  a  bishopric  which  he  refused, 
but  finally  the  Pope,  yielding  to  the  demand  of  the 
princes  and  people,  appointed  him  primate  and  then 
made  him  a  cardinal.  His  "  Guide  to  Catholic  Truth  " 
was  the  first  polemic  in  the  Hungarian  language.  He 
founded  a  university  at  Tyrnau  which  was  afterwards 
transferred  to  Buda.  The  Hungarian  College  at  Rome 
was  his  creation,  as  was  the  Pazmaneum  in  Vienna. 
His  name  has  been  recently  inserted  in  the  Roman 
Breviary  in  connection  with  the  three  Hungarian 
martyrs,  two  of  whom  were  Jesuits,  Pongracz  and 
Grodecz,  who  were  put  to  death  in  1619. 

Italy  exhibited  a  similar  energy  from  one  end  to  the 
other  of  the  Peninsula.  Chandlery  in  his  "  Fasti 
Breviores  "  (p.  40)  tells  us  that  "  the  first  school  of 
the  Society  was  opened  in  the  Piazza.  Ara  Cceli  in  1551, 
and  soon  developed  into  the  famous  Roman  College. 
In  1552  it  was  removed  to  a  house  near  the  Minerva; 
in  1554  to  a  place  near  the  present  site;  in  1562  to 
the  house  of  Pope  Paul  IV;  and  in  1582  to  the  new 
buildings  of  the  Gregorian  University."  It  was  in 
this  college  on  March  25,  1563,  that  the  Belgian 
scholastic,  John  Leunis,  organized  the  first  sodality  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin.  Fouqueray,  however,  contests  this 
claim  of  the  Ara  Cceli  school,  and  asserts  that  the  first 


70  The  Jesuits 

college  was  at  Messina,  and  was  begun  in  1547,  and 
that  St.  Ignatius  determined  to  make  it  the  model 
of  all  similar  establishments.  Its  rule  was  based  on 
the  methods  that  prevailed  in  the  colleges  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  with  changes,  however,  in  its 
discipline  and  religious  direction.  Its  plan  of  studies 
was  the  first  "  Ratio  studiorum."  It  had  two  sessions 
of  two  or  three  hours  each  daily;  Latin  was  always 
employed  as  the  language  of  the  house,  but  both 
Hebrew  and  Greek  were  taught.  Vacation  lasted  only 
fifteen  days  for  pupils  in  humanities  and  the  higher 
grades;  and  only  eight  days  or  less  for  those  in  the 
lower  classes.  The  students  went  to  confession  every 
month  and  assisted  daily  at  Mass.  Nearly  all  the 
cities  of  the  peninsula  had  called  for  similar  colleges. 
In  what  is  now  Belgium  there  were  thirty-four  colleges 
or  schools,  an  apparently  excessive  number,  but  the 
fact  that  they  were,  with  two  exceptions,  day-schools 
and  that  small  boys  were  excluded  will  explain  the 
possibility  of  managing  them  with  comparatively  few 
professors.  Six  or  seven  sufficed  for  as  many  hundred 
pupils.  Moreover,  something  in  the  way  of  a  founda- 
tion to  support  the  school  was  always  required  before 
its  establishment. 

In  1564  the  Roman  Seminary  was  entrusted  to  the 
Society;  and  in  1578  the  Roman  College.  Five  years 
previously,  the  Collegium  Germanicum,  after  Canisius 
had  presented  a  memorial  to  Gregory  XIII  on  the 
services  it  was  expected  to  render,  obtained  a  subsidy 
for  a  certain  number  of  students.  The  Bull,  dated 
August,  1573,  exhorted  the  Catholics  of  the  German 
Empire  to  provide  for  a  hundred  students  of  philosophy 
and  theology.  The  Pope  gave  it  the  palace  of  St. 
Apollinaris,  the  Convent  of  St.  Sabas  and  the  revenues 
of  St.  Stephen  on  Monte  Ccelio.  Over  and  above  this, 
he  guaranteed  10,000  crowns  out  of  the  revenues  of 


Initial  Activities  71 

the  Apostolic  Treasury.  In  1574  it  had  one  hundred 
and  thirty  students  and  in  a  few  years  one  hundred  and 
fifty.  The  philosophers  followed  a  three  years'  course, 
the  theologians  four.  Between  1573  and  1585  the 
Pope  disbursed  for  the  Collegium  Germanicum  alone 
about  235,649  crowns  —  equivalent  to  about  a  quarter 
of  a  million  dollars.  Besides  this,  as  early  as  1552 
St.  Ignatius  had  obtained  from  Julius  III  a  Bull 
endowing  a  college  for  the  study  of  the  humanities, 
in  which  young  Germans  could  prepare  themselves 
for  philosophy  and  theology.  In  its  opening  year  it 
had  twenty-five  students,  and  in  the  following  twice  as 
many.  Under  Paul  IV  when  the  establishment  was 
in  dire  want,  St.  Ignatius  supported  it  by  begging,  and 
he  told  Cardinal  Truchsess  that  he  would  sell  himself 
into  slavery  rather  than  forsake  his  Germans.  It  was 
while  engrossed  in  this  work  that  Ignatius  died.  His 
memory  is  tenderly  cherished  in  the  Collegium  Ger- 
manicum to  this  day.  When  his  name  is  read  out  in 
the  Martyrology  on  July  31,  the  students  all  rise,  and 
with  uncovered  heads  listen  reverently  to  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  feast  of  their  founder. 


CHAPTER  III 

ENDS   OF  THE   EARTH 

Xavier  departs  for  the  East  —  Goa  —  Around  Hindostan  — 
Malacca  —  The  Moluccas  —  Return  to  Goa  —  The  Valiant  Belgian  — 
Troubles  in  Goa  —  Enters  Japan  —  Returns  to  Goa  —  Starts  for 
China  —  Dies  off  the  Coast  —  Remains  brought  to  Goa  —  Africa  — 
Congo,  Angola,  Caffreria,  Abyssinia  —  Brazil,  Nobrega,  Anchieta, 
Azevedo  —  Failure  of  Rodriguez  in  Portugal. 

WHEN  John  III  of  Portugal  asked  for  missionaries  to 
evangelize  the  colonies  which  the  discoveries  of  Da 
Gama  and  others  had  won  for  the  crown  in  the  far 
east,  Bobadilla,  Rodriguez  and  Xavier  were  assigned 
to  the  work.  Bobadilla's  sickness  prevented  him  from 
going,  and  then  His  Majesty  judged  that  he  was  too 
generous  to  his  new  possessions  and  not  kind  enough 
to  the  mother  country;  so  it  was  decided  to  keep 
Rodriguez  in  Portugal,  his  native  land,  and  send 
Xavier  to  the  Indies. 

Xavier  arrived  at  Lisbon  in  June,  1540,  and  waited 
there  eight  months  for  the  departure  of  the  vessel, 
during  which  time  he  and  Rodriguez  effected  a  complete 
reformation  in  the  morals  of  the  city.  He  then  began 
a  series  of  apostolic  journeys  which  were  nothing  less 
than  stupendous  in  their  character,  not  only  for  the 
distances  covered  during  the  eleven  years  to  which 
they  were  restricted,  but  because  of  the  extraordinary 
and  often  unseaworthy  craft  in  which  he  traversed  the 
yet  uncharted  seas  of  the  East,  which  were  swept 
by  typhoons  and  infested  by  pirates,  and  where 
there  was  constant  danger  of  being  wrecked  on  inhos- 
pitable coasts  and  murdered  by  the  savage  natives. 
Three  times  his  ship  went  to  pieces  on  the  rocks,  and 
on  one  occasion  he  had  to  cling  to  a  plank  for  days 

72 


Ends  of  the  Earth  73 

while  the  waves  swept  over  him.  Several  times  he 
came  near  being  poisoned,  and  once  he  had  to  hide 
in  the  bush  for  a  long  time  to  escape  the  head-hunters 
of  the  Moluccas.  The  distances  he  traversed  can  only 
be  appreciated  by  having  an  atlas  at  hand  while 
perusing  the  story. 

Leaving  Europe,  his  course  lay  along  the  west  coast 
of  Africa,  rounding  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  then 
making  for  far  away  Mozambique.  From  there  he 
pointed  across  the  Arabian  Sea  to  Goa  on  the  west 
coast  of  Hindostan.  Shortly  afterwards,  he  continued 
down  the  coast  to  Cochin  and  Cape  Comorin  and 
across  to  Ceylon,  then  along  the  eastern  side  of  the 
peninsula  to  the  Pearl  Fisheries,  and  back  to  Goa. 
Soon  after,  he  is  sailing  across  the  Bay  of  Bengal  to 
distant  Malacca,  which  lies  north  of  Sumatra;  from 
there  he  penetrates  into  the  Chinese  Sea,  and  skirting 
Borneo  and  the  Celebes,  he  arrives  at  the  Molucca 
Islands,  going  through  them  from  north  to  south  and 
back.  Returning  to  Goa,  he  again  makes  for  Malacca 
and  points  north  to  Japan,  passing  the  Philippines  on 
his  way,  though  it  is  claimed  that  he  landed  at 
Mindanao.  From  Japan  he  returns  to  Goa  and  then 
sets  out  for  China.  He  reached  an  island  opposite 
Canton,  pined  away  there  for  a  month  or  so,  as  no 
one  dared  to  carry  him  over  to  the  coast.  He  then 
took  his  flight  to  heaven,  which  was  very  near. 

It  was  a  great  day  for  Lisbon  when,  on  April  7,  1541, 
which  happened  to  be  his  birthday,  Xavier  set  sail  for 
India.  He  was  papal  nuncio  and  King  John's  ambas- 
sador to  the  Emperor  of  Ethiopia.  Nevertheless  the 
princes  and  potentates  whom  this  poorly  clad  ambas- 
sador met  on  'his  way  must  have  gazed  at  him  in 
wonder;  for  in  spite  of  his  honors,  he  washed  and 
mended  his  own  clothes,  and  while  on  shipboard 
refused  the  assistance  of  a  servant  and  scarcely  ate  any 


74  The  Jesuits 

food.  The  crew  were  a  rascally  set,  as  were  most  of 
the  sea-rovers  of  those  days;  but  this  extraordinary 
papal  nuncio  and  ambassador  passed  his  time  among 
them,  always  bright,  approachable  and  happy,  nursing 
them  when  they  were  sick,  and  gently  taking  them  to 
task  for  their  ill-spent  lives.  All  day  long  he  was  busy 
with  them,  and  during  the  night  he  was  scourging 
himself  or  praying.  By  the  time  the  ship  reached  its 
destination  it  was  a  floating  church. 

Goa  was  the  capital  of  Portuguese  India.  It  was 
not  yet  the  golden  Goa  of  the  seventeenth  century; 
but  it  had  churches  and  chapels  and  a  cathedral,  an 
inchoate  college  and  a  bishop  and  a  Franciscan  friary. 
Mingled,  however,  with  the  Christian  population  was 
a  horde  of  idolaters,  Mussulmans,  Jews,  Arabians, 
Persians,  Hindoos  and  others,  all  of  them  rated  as 
inferior  races  by  the  Portuguese  who  were  the  hidalgos 
or  fidalgos  of  Goa,  even  if  they  had  been  cooks  and 
street-sweepers  in  Lisbon  or  Oporto.  They  were  now 
clad  in  silks  and  brocades,  and  wore  gold  and  precious 
gems  in  profusion;  they  delighted  in  religious  displays; 
but  in  morality  they  were  more  debased  than  the  worst 
pagans  they  jostled  against  in  the  streets.  There  were 
open  debauchery,  concubinage,  polygamy  and  kindred 
crimes. 

The  coming  of  the  papal  nuncio  was  a  great  event, 
but  he  refused  all  recognition  of  his  official  rank.  He 
lived  in  the  hospital,  looked  after  the  lepers  in  their 
sheds,  or  the  criminals  in  the  jails,  taught  the  children 
their  catechism,  and  conversed  with  people  of  every 
class  and  condition.  He  got  the  secrets  of  their  con- 
science; and  in  five  months,  Goa,  at  least  in  its  Christian 
population,  was  as  decent  in  its  morals  as  it  had  formerly 
been  corrupt  and  depraved.  At  the  end  of  the  penin- 
sula, but  beyond  Cape  Comorin,  were  the  Pearl  Fisher- 
ies, where  lived  a  degraded  caste  who  had  been  visited 


Ends  of  the  Earth  75 

by  the  Franciscans  and  baptized  some  years  before; 
but  they  had  been  left  in  their  ignorance  and  vice,  and 
no  one  in  Goa  now  ever  gave  them  a  thought.  Thither 
Xavier  betook  himself  with  his  chalice  and  vestments 
and  breviary,  but  with  no  provisions  for  his  support. 

On  his  way  he  passed  Salsette,  where  Rudolph 
Aquaviva  was  martyred  in  later  days;  and  he  saw 
Canara  and  Mangalore  and  Cananon,  where  there 
was  a  mission  station.  He  then  went  to  Calicut  and 
Cranganore  and  Cape  Comorin,  where  the  goddess 
Dourga  was  worshipped,  and  finally  arrived  at  the  Fish- 
eries, where  he  found  a  people  who  were  wretchedly 
poor,  with  nothing  to  cover  them  but  a  turban  and  a 
breech-clout,  and  who  lived  in  huts  along  the  shifting 
sands  near  the  cocoanut-trees.  With  their  tiny  boats 
and  rafts  they  contrived  to  get  a  livelihood  from  the  sea, 
but  they  were  shunned  by  the  other  Hindoos;  for 
baptism  had  made  them  outcasts,  and  they  were  also 
the  helpless  victims  of  the  pirates  who  were  constantly 
prowling  along  the  coast.  Xavier  lived  in  their  filthy 
houses,  talked  with  them  through  interpreters,  gave 
them  what  instructions  they  were  capable  of  receiving, 
and  baptised  all  who  had  not  yet  become  Christians. 
He  remained  two  years  with  them,  and  after  getting 
Portuguese  ships  to  patrol  the  Sea,  sent  other  mission- 
aries to  replace  him  when  he  had  built  catechumenates 
and  little  churches  here  and  there.  Although  Xavier 
appears  to  have  justified  these  rapid  conversions  by 
the  precedent  of  3000  people  becoming  Christians 
after  the  first  sermon  of  St.  Peter,  yet  Ignatius,  while 
not  blaming  his  methods,  wrote  him  later  that  the 
instructions  should  precede  and  not  follow  baptism, 
and  that  quality  rather  than  quantity  should  be  the 
guide  in  accessions  to  the  Faith. 

Xavier  returned  thence  to  Goa,  but  we  find  him  in 
the  last  days  of  September,  1545,  abandoning  India 


76  The  Jesuits 

for  a  time  and  going  ashore  near  the  Portuguese 
settlement  on  the  Straits  of  Malacca.  It  was  a  danger- 
ous post,  for  it  swarmed  with  Mohammedans.  There 
were  fierce  tcumeurs  de  mer,  or  sea-combers,  on  the 
near-by  coasts  of  Sumatra,  and  on  the  island  of  'Bitang 
the  dethroned  sultans  were  waiting  for  a  chance  to 
expel  the  Portuguese,  while  all  through  the  interior 
were  fierce  and  unapproachable  savage  tribes.  Besides 
all  this,  the  whites  who  had  settled  there  for  trade 
were  a  depraved  mob ;  it  is  recorded  that  Xavier  spent 
three  whole  days  without  food  hearing  their  con- 
fessions, and  passed  entire  nights  praying  for  their 
conversion.  In  spite  of  all  this  accumulation  of  labor, 
he  contrived  to  write  a  catechism  and  a  prayer-book 
in  Malay.  In  1546  he  went  further  east,  past  Java 
and  Flores,  and  reached  the  Moluccas  after  a  month 
and  a  half.  He  was  on  sociable  terms  everywhere, 
with  soldiers  and  sailors  and  commandants  of  posts 
as  well  as  cannibals,  and  made  light  of  every  hardship 
and  danger  in  his  efforts  to  win  souls  to  God.  Up  and 
down  the  islands  of  the  archipelago  he  travelled, 
meeting  degeneracy  of  the  worst  kind  at  every  step. 
But  he  established  missionary  posts,  with  the  wonderful 
result  that  ten  years  later,  De  Beira,  whom  he  sent 
there,  had  forty-seven  stations  and  3000  Christian 
families  in  these  islands.  Xavier  spent  two  years 
in  the  Moluccas  to  prepare  the  way,  and  was  back 
again  in  Goa  in  1548. 

During  his  absence,  a  number  of  missionaries, 
making  in  all  six  priests  and  nine  coadjutor  brothers, 
had  been  sent  from  Portugal.  With  them  were  a 
dozen  Dominicans.  Among  the  Jesuits  were  Fernandes 
and  Cosmo  de  Torres,  who,  later  on,  were  to  be  along 
with  Xavier  the  founders  of  the  great  mission  of 
Japan.  There  came  also  Antonio  Gomes,  a  distinguished 
student  of  Coimbra,  a  master  of  arts,  a  doctor  of 


Ends  of  the  Earth  77 

canon  law,  and  a  notable  orator.  But,  except  as  an 
orator,  he  was  not  to  have  the  success  in  Goa  that  he 
had  won  in  Lisbon.  Likewise  in  the  party  was  Gaspard 
Baertz,  a  Fleming,  who  had  had  a  varied  career, 
as  a  master  of  arts  at  Louvain,  a  soldier  in  the  army 
of  Charles  V,  a  hermit  at  Montserrat,  a  Jesuit  in 
Coimbra,  and  now  a  missionary  in  India.  It  was 
Baertz's  capacity  for  work  that  prompted  Xavier's 
famous  petition:  "  Da  mihi  fortes  Belgas  "  (Give  me 
sturdy  Belgians).  Criminali,  the  first  of  the  Society  to 
be  martyred  in  the  East,  had  arrived  previously,  as 
had  Lancilotti,  a  consumptive,  who  seemed  to  be 
particularly  active  in  writing  letters  to  Rome  com- 
plaining of  Xavier's  frequent  absences  from  Goa. 
Gomes  was  appointed  rector  of  the  nondescript 
college,  which  belonged  to  the  Bishop  of  Goa,  and 
which  had  been  partly  managed  by  Lancilotti  up  to 
that  time.  The  new  superior  immediately  proceeded 
to  turn  everything  upside  down,  and  his  hard,  au- 
thoritative methods  of  government  immediately  caused 
discontent.  According  to  Lancilotti,  he  was  utterly 
unused  to  the  ways  of  the  Society  in  dealing  not  only 
with  the  members  of  the  community  but  with  the 
native  students.  His  idea  was  to  make  the  college 
another  Coimbra  —  a  great  educational  institution 
with  branches  at  Cochin,  Bacaim  and  elsewhere.  How- 
ever, the  plan  was  not  altogether  his  conception.  Some- 
thing of  that  kind  had  been  projected  for  India  in 
connection  with  a  great  educational  movement  which 
was  agitating  Portugal  at  that  time.  In  writing  to 
Lisbon  and  Rome  about  this  matter,  Xavier  incidentally 
reveals  his  ideas  on  the  question  of  a  native  priesthood. 
He  required  for  it  several  previous  generations  of 
respectable  Christian  parents.  The  division  qf  castes 
in  India  also  created  a  difficulty,  for  the  reason  that 
a  priest  taken  from  one  caste  was  never  allowed 


78  The  Jesuits 

intercourse  with  those  who  belonged  to  another; 
and,  finally,  he  pointed  out  that  for  a  Portuguese  to 
confess  to  a  native  was  unthinkable. 

Meanwhile,  although  domestic  matters  were  not 
as  satisfactory  as  they  might  have  been,  Xavier  was 
planning  his  departure  for  Japan.  He  first  visited 
several  posts  and  settled  the  difficulties  that  presented 
themselves.  Gomes  was  his  chief  source  of  worry, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  been  removed 
from  his  post  as  rector  on  account  of  the  dissatis- 
faction he  had  caused,  had  it  not  been  for  his  wonderful 
popularity  in  the  city  as  a  preacher.  Just  then  a 
change  might  have  caused  an  outbreak  among  the 
people  and  a  rupture  with  the  bishop.  Xavier  con- 
tented himself,  therefore,  with  restricting  the  activities 
of  Gomes  to  temporal  matters ;  and  assigned  to  Cypriano 
the  care  of  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  community. 
He  could  have  done  nothing  more,  even  if  he  had 
remained  at  Goa. 

These  repeated  absences  of  Francis  Xavfer  from  Goa 
have  often  been  urged  against  him  as  revealing  a 
serious  defect  in  his  character;  a  yielding  to  what  was 
called  "  Basque  restlessness,"  which  prompted  those 
who  had  that  strain  in  their  blood  to  be  continually  on 
the  road  in  quest  of  new  scenes  and  romantic  adven- 
tures. The  real  reason  seems  to  have  been  his  despair 
of  doing  anything  in  Goa,  with  its  jumble  of  Moslems 
and  pagans  and  corrupt  Portuguese,  and  its  string  of 
military  posts  where  every  little  political  commandant 
was  perpetually  interfering  with  missionary  efforts. 
It  could  never  be  the  centre  of  a  great  missionary 
movement.  "I  want  to  be,"  he  said,  "where  there 
are  no  Moslems  or  Jews.  Give  me  out  and  out  pagans, 
people  who  are  anxious  to  know  something  new  about 
nature  and  God,  and  I  am  determined  to  find  them." 
He  had  heard  something  about  Japan,  as  verifying 


Ends  of  the  Earth  79 

these  conditions;  and,  though  he  had  travelled  much 
already  and  was  aware  of  the  complaints  about  him- 
self, he  resolved  to  go  further  still;  so,  taking  with  him 
de  Torres  and  Fernandes,  besides  a  Japanese  convert, 
Xaca,  and  two  servants,  he  set  his  face  towards  the 
Land  of  the  Rising  Sun.  He  was  then  forty-three 
years  of  age. 

He  was  at  Malacca  from  May  31  to  June  24,  1549, 
and  found  that  the  missions  he  had  established  there 
were  doing  remarkably  well,  as  were  the  others  in  the 
Moluccas.  The  latter,  however,  he  did  not  visit.  He 
started  for  Japan  in  a  miserable  Chinese  junk,  three 
other  associates  having  joined  him  meantime, — 
a  Portuguese,  a  Chinaman,  and  a  Malay.  It  took  two 
months  before  he  saw  the  volcanoes  of  Kiu  Siu  on  the 
horizon,  and  it  was  only  on  August  15,  1549,  that  he 
went  ashore  at  Kagoshima,  the  native  city  of  his 
Japanese  companion.  The  day  was  an  auspicious  one. 
It  was  the  anniversary  of  his  first  vows  at  Montmartre. 

Xavier  began  studying  the  language  of  the  country 
and  remained  for  a  time  more  or  less  in  seclusion; 
with  the  help  of  Xaca,  or  Paul  as  they  called  him,  a 
short  statement  of  the  Christian  Faith  was  drawn  up. 
With  that  equipment,  after  securing  the  necessary 
permission,  he,  Fernandes  and  Xaca  started  on  their 
first  preaching  excursion.  Their  appearance  excited 
the  liveliest  curiosity.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people 
Xavier  was  merely  a  new  kind  of  bonze,  and  they 
listened  to  him  with  the  greatest  attention.  The 
programme  adopted  was  first  for  Xaca  to  summon 
the  crowd  and  address  them,  then  Xavier  would  read 
his  paper.  They  were  always  ready  to  stop  at  any  part 
of  the  road  or  for  any  assembly  and  repeat  their 
message.  Soon  their  work  rose  above  mere  street 
preaching.  They  were  invited  to  the  houses  of  the 
great  who  listened  more  or  less  out  of  curiosity  or 


80  The  Jesuits 

for  a  new  sensation.  When  they  had  accomplished 
all  they  could  in  one  place,  they  went  to  another, 
always  on  foot,  in  wretched  attire,  through  cities  and 
over  snow-clad  mountains,  always,  however,  with  the 
aim  of  getting  to  the  capital  of  the  empire,  both  to 
see  the  emperor  and  to  reach  the  great  university, 
about  which  they  had  heard  before  they  set  out  for 
Japan.  Naturally,  the  teaching  of  this  new  religion 
brought  Xavier  into  conflict  with  the  bonzes,  who 
were  a  grossly  immoral  set  of  men,  though  outwardly 
pretending  to  great  austerity.  The  people,  how- 
ever, understood  them  thoroughly  and  were  more 
than  gratified  when  the  hypocrites  were  held  up  to 
ridicule. 

By  this  time  he  discovered  his  mistake  in  going 
about  in  the  apparel  of  a  beggar,  and  henceforward 
he  determined  to  make  a  proper  use  of  his  position 
as  envoy  of  the  Governor  of  the  Indies  and  of  the 
Bishop  of  Goa.  He,  therefore,  presented  himself  to 
the  Daimyo  of  Yamaguchi  in  his  best  attire,  with 
his  credentials  engrossed  on  parchment  and  an  abundant 
supply  of  rich  presents  —  an  arquebus,  a  spinnet, 
mirrors,  crystal  goblets,  books,  spectacles,  a  Portuguese 
dress,  a  clock  and  other  objects.  Conditions  changed 
immediately.  The  Daimyo  gave  him  a  handsome 
sum  of  money,  besides  full  liberty  to  preach  wherever 
he  went.  He  lived  at  the  house  of  a  Japanese  noble- 
man at  Yamaguchi,  and  crowds  listened  to  him  in 
respectful  silence  as  he  spoke  of  creation  and  the 
soul  —  subjects  of  which  the  Japanese  knew  nothing. 
His  learning  was  praised  by  every  one,  and  his  virtue 
admired;  soon  several  notable  conversions  followed. 
After  remaining  at  this  place  for  six  months,  Xavier 
went  to  the  capital,  Meaco,  the  present  Kioto,  but 
apparently  he  made  little  or  no  impression  there. 
Then  news  came  from  Goa  which  compelled  him  to 


Ends  of  the  Earth  81 

return  to  India.  So  leaving  his  faithful  friends,  de 
Torres  and  Fernandes,  to  carry  on  the  work  which 
was  so  auspiciously  begun,  he  started  for  Goa,  some- 
where between  15  and  20  November,  1551.  He  had 
achieved  his  purpose  —  he  had  opened  Japan  to 
Christianity. 

On  the  ship  that  carried  him  back  to  Goa,  Xavier 
made  arrangements  with  a  merchant  named  Pereira 
to  organize  an  expedition  to  enter  China.  Pereira 
was  to  go  as  a  regularly  accredited  ambassador  of 
the  Viceroy  of  the  Indies,  while  Xavier  would  get 
permission  from  the  emperor  to  preach  the  Gospel, 
and  ask  for  the  repeal  of  the  laws  hostile  to  foreigners 
and,  among  other  things,  for  the  liberation  of  the 
Portuguese  prisoners  —  dreams  which  were  never 
realized,  but  which  reveal  the  buoyant  and  almost 
boyish  hopefulness  of  Xavier's  character.  On  his 
way  back  he  heard  of  the  tragic  death  of  Criminal! 
at  Cape  Comorin  —  the  first  Jesuit  to  shed  his  blood 
in  India.  It  occurred  in  one  of  the  uprisings  of  the 
Badages  savages  against  the  Portuguese.  Later  a 
brother  was  killed  at  the  same  place.  Success,  how- 
ever, had  attended  the  labors  of  Criminali  and  his 
associates;  for  according  to  Polanco  and  an  incomplete 
government  census,  there  were  between  50,000  and 
60,000  Christians  at  that  point  in  1552.  It  was  well 
on  in  February  of  that  year  when  Xavier  stepped 
ashore  at  Goa. 

During  his  absence,  the  missions  had  all  achieved 
a  remarkable  success.  Among  them  was  a  new  post 
at  Ormuz  off  the  coast  of  Arabia  where  Mussulmans 
of  Persia,  Jews  from  far  and  near,  even  from  Portugal, 
Indian  Brahmans  and  Jains,  Parsees,  Turks,  Arabians, 
Christians  of  Armenia  and  Ethiopia,  apostate  Italians, 
Greeks,  Russians  and  a  Portuguese  garrison  met  for 
commerce,  and  for  the  accompanying  debauchery  of 
6 


82  The  Jesuits 

such  Oriental  centres.  The  Belgian  missionary,  Baertz, 
had  transformed  the  place.  All  this  was  satisfactory; 
but  the  college  at  Goa  where  Gomes  presided  was  in 
disorder.  Before  that  imprudent  man  could  have 
possibly  become  acquainted  with  the  ways  of  the 
new  country,  he  had  let  himself  be  duped  by  one  of 
the  native  chiefs  who  pretended  to  be  a  convert,  but 
who  was  in  reality  a  black-hearted  traitor.  He  had 
also  nullified  the  authority  of  his  associate  in  the 
government  of  the  college,  and  had  been  acting  almost 
as  superior  of  the  entire  mission.  Among  the  people 
he  had  caused  intense  irritation  by  changing  the 
traditional  church  services;  he  had  dismissed  the 
students  of  the  college  and  put  novices  in  their  stead; 
he  had  appropriated  a  church  belonging  to  a  con- 
fraternity and,  in  consequence,  had  got  both  himself 
and  the  Society  embroiled  with  the  governor-general. 
But  in  spite  of  all  this,  it  was  still  difficult  to  depose 
him  on  account  of  his  popularity  and  because  he  was 
looked  upon  as  an  angel  by  the  bishop.  Unfortunately, 
Gomes  refused  to  be  convinced  of  his  shortcomings 
and  even  disputed  the  right  of  his  successor,  who 
had  already  been  appointed.  Hence  popular  though 
he  was,  he  was  given  his  dimissorial  letters.  He 
appealed  to  Rome,  and  on  his  way  thither  was  lost 
at  sea.  It  is  rather  startling  to  find  that  Francis 
Xavier  not  only  used  this  power  of  dismissal  himself 
but  gave  it  even  to  local  superiors  (Monumenta 
Xaveriana,  715-18).  Possibly  it  was  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  communication  with  Rome  that  this  method 
was  adopted,  but  it  would  be  inconceivable  nowadays. 
When  all  this  was  settled,  Xavier  appointed  Baertz, 
vice-provincial,  and,  on  April  17,  1552,  departed  for 
China.  On  arriving  at  Cochin,  he  heard  that  one 
of  the  missionaries  had  been  badly  treated  by  the 
natives,  that  the  mission  was  in  dire  want,  and  that 


Ends  of  the  Earth  83 

Lancilotti  was  in  sore  straits  at  Coulam.  But  all 
that  did  not  stop  him.  He  merely  wrote  to  Baertz  to 
remedy  these  evils,  and  then  continued  on  his  journey. 
Of  course  it  would  be  impossible  to  judge  such 
missionary  methods  from  a  mere  human  standpoint. 
For  Xavier's  extraordinary  thaumaturgic  powers,  his 
gifts  of  prayer  and  prophecy  easily  explain  how  he 
could  not  only  convert  multitudes  to  the  Faith,  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time,  but  keep  them  firm 
and  constant  in  the  practice  of  their  religion,  long 
after  he  had  entrusted  the  care  of  them  to  others. 
The  memory  of  his  marvellous  works,  which  are 
bewildering  in  their  number,  would  necessarily  remain 
in  the  minds  of  his  neophytes,  while  the  graces  which 
his  prayers  had  gained  for  them  would  give  them  a 
more  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  doctrines  he 
had  taught  them  than  if  they  had  been  the  converts 
of  an  ordinary  missionary. 

Up  to  the  time  of  his  departure  for  China  his  apostolic 
career  had  been  like  a  triumphal  progress.  He  was 
now  to  meet  disaster  and  defeat,  but  it  is  that  dark 
moment  of  his  life  which  throws  about  him  the  greatest 
lustre.  His  friend,  Pereira,  had  been  duly  accredited 
as  ambassador  of  the  viceroy  and  had  invested  the 
largest  part  of  his  fortune  in  the  vessel  that  was  to 
convey  Xavier  as  papal  nuncio  to  the  court  of  the 
Emperor  of  China.  It  was  the  only  way  to  enter 
the  country  and  to  reach  the  imperial  court;  but  the 
Governor  of  Malacca  defeated  the  whole  scheme. 
He  was  a  gambler  and  a  debauchee,  and  wanted  the 
post  of  ambassador  for  himself  to  pay  his  debts. 
Hence,  in  spite  of  the  entreaties  of  Xavier  and  the 
menace  of  the  wrath  both  of  the  king  and  the  Pope 
he  confiscated  the  cargo  and  left  the  two  envoys 
stranded,  just  when  success  was  assured.  The  result 
was  that  Pereira  had  to  remain  in  hiding,  while  Xavier 


84  The  Jesuits 

shook  the  dust  from  his  feet,  not  figuratively  but 
actually,  so  as  to  strike  terror  into  the  heart  of  Don 
Alvaro.  He  embarked  on  his  own  ship,  "  The  Holy 
Cross,"  which  was  now  converted  into  a  merchantman 
and  packed  with  people.  In  that  unseemly  fashion 
he  started  for  China. 

A  landing  was  made  on  the  island  of  Sancian  which 
lay  about  thirty  miles  from  the  mainland,  on  a  line 
with  the  city  of  Canton.  Trading  was  allowed  at 
that  distance,  but  any  nearer  approach  to  the  coast 
meant  imprisonment  and  death.  That  island  was 
Xavier's  last  dwelling-place  on  earth ;  there  he  remained 
for  months  gazing  towards  the  land  he  was  never  to 
enter.  There  were  several  ships  in  the  offing,  but  he 
was  shunned  by  the  crews,  for  fear  of  the  terrible 
Alvaro  who  was  officially  "  master  of  the  seas  "  and 
could  punish  them  for  being  friends  of  his  enemy. 
At  least  the  Chinese  traders  who  had  come  over  to 
the  island  were  approachable,  and  Xavier  succeeded 
in  inducing  one  of  them  for  a  money  consideration 
to  drop  him  somewhere  on  the  coast  —  he  did  not 
care  where.  But  no  sooner  was  the  bargain  known 
than  there  was  an  uproar  among  the  crews  of  the 
ships.  If  he  were  caught,  they  would  all  be  massacred, 
and  so  he  agreed  to  wait  till  they  had  sailed  away. 

Slowly  the  weeks  passed,  as  one  by  one  the  vessels 
hoisted  sail  and  disappeared  over  the  horizon.  Xavier's 
strength  was  failing  fast,  and  he  lay  stretched  out 
uncared  for,  under  a  miserable  shed  which  had  been 
built  on  the  shore  to  protect  him  from  the  inclemency 
of  the  weather.  With  his  gaze  ever  turned  towards 
the  coast  which  he  had  so  longed  to  reach,  he  breathed 
his  last  on  December  2,  1552,  with  the  words  on  his 
lips:  "  Inthee,  O  Lord,  have  I  hoped,  let  me  not  be 
confounded  forever."  He  was  but  forty-six  years 
old;  eleven  years  and  seven  months  had  elapsed 


Ends  of  the  Earth  85 

since  he  sailed  down  the  Tagus  for  the  Unknown  East. 
Only  four  people  were  courageous  enough  to  give  him 
the  decencies  of  a  burial,  the  others  looked  on  from 
the  gunwales  of  the  ship,  while  his  grave  was  being 
dug  on  shore.  His  body  was  placed  in  a  box  of  quick- 
lime so  that  the  flesh  might  be  quickly  consumed,  and 
the  bones  carried  back  to  Goa;  having  lowered  it 
into  a  grave  which  was  made  in  a  little  hillock  above 
the  sea,  the  small  party  withdrew. 

Two  months  later,  when  the  ship  was  about  to  leave, 
the  box  was  opened,  and  to  the  amazement  and  almost 
the  terror  of  all,  not  only  was  the  flesh  found  to  be 
intact,  but  the  face  wore  a  ruddy  hue,  and  blood 
flowed  from  an  incision  made  below  the  knee.  It 
was  a  triumphant  ship's-crew  that  now  carried  the 
precious  freight  to  Malacca.  They  were  no  longer 
afraid,  for  their  ship  was  a  sanctuary  guarding  the 
relics  of  a  saint.  The  ceremonies  were  impressive 
when  they  reached  Malacca,  though  Don  Alvaro 
scorned  even  to  notice  them;  but  when  the  vessel 
entered  the  harbor  of  Goa  the  splendor  of  the  reception 
accorded  the  dead  hero  surpassed  all  that  the  Orient 
had  ever  seen.  Xavier  rests  there  yet,  and  his  body 
is  still  incorrupt.  It  was  a  proper  ending  of  the  earthly 
career  of  the  greatest  missionary  the  world  has  known 
since  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  In  1662  he  was  canon- 
ized with  his  friend  Ignatius  by  Pope  Alexander  VII. 

In  striking  contrast  with  all  this  glory  is  the  failure 
of  every  one  of  the  missions  on  the  Dark  Continent  of 
Africa.  Between  1547  and  1561  the  Congo  and  Angola 
had  been  visited,  but  no  permanent  post  had  been 
established.  In  Caffreria,  Father  Silveira  and  fifty 
of  his  neophytes  were  martyred.  In  1555  Nunhes, 
Carnero  and  Oviedo  were  sent  to  Abyssinia,  the  first 
as  patriarch,  the  others  as  suffragans.  The  patriarchate 
subsequently  passed  to  Oviedo,  who  was  the  only  one 


86  The  Jesuits 

to  reach  the  country.  He  was  well  received  by  the 
Negus,  Asnaf,  and  permitted  to  exercise  his  ministry, 
but,  in  1559  the  king  was  slain  in  battle,  and  his 
successor  drove  the  missionary  and  his  little  flock 
out  into  the  desert  of  Adowa,  a  region  made  famous, 
in  our  own  times,  by  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the 
Italian  troops  when  they  met  Menelik  and  his  Abys- 
sinians.  Oviedo  continued  to  live  there  during  twenty 
years  of  incredible  suffering.  In  1624  Paez,  one  of 
his  successors,  succeeded  in  converting  the  Emperor 
Socimos,  and  in  getting  Abyssinia  to  abjure  its  Euty- 
chianism,  but  when  Basilides  mounted  the  throne  in 
1632  he  handed  over  the  Jesuits  to  the  axe  of  the 
executioner.  After  that,  Abyssinia  remained  closed  to 
Christianity  until  1702. 

The  most  curious  of  these  efforts  to  win  Africa  to 
the  Faith  occurred  as  early  as  1561,  when  Pius  IV, 
at  the  request  of  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  sent 
a  delgation  to  the  Copts,  in  an  endeavour  to  re-unite 
them  to  the  Church.  Among  the  papal  representatives 
was  a  Jesuit  named  Eliano,  who  was  a  converted 
Jew.  He  had  been  brought  up  as  a  strict  Hebrew, 
and  when  his  brother  became  a  Christian  he  had 
hurried  off  to  Venice  to  recall  him  to  Judaism.  The 
unexpected  happened.  Eliano  himself  became  a 
Christian  and,  later,  a  Jesuit.  As  he  had  displayed 
great  activity  in  evangelizing  his  former  co-religionists, 
he  was  thought  to  be  available  in  this  instance,  but  un- 
fortunately on  arriving  at  Alexandria,  he  was  recognized 
by  the  Jews,  who  were  numerous  and  influential  there, 
and  a  wild  riot  ensued,  the  voice  that  shrieked  the  loud- 
est for  his  blood  being  that  of  his  own  mother.  It  was 
with  great  difficulty  that  his  friends  prevented  his 
murder.  He  returned  to  Europe  and  his  last  days 
were  spent  in  Rome  where  he  was  the  friendly  rival 
of  the  great  Cardinal  Farnese  in  caring  for  the  poor 


Ends  of  the  Earth  87 

of  the  city.  They  died  on  the  same  day,  and  their 
tombs  were  regarded  as  shrines  by  their  sorrowing 
beneficiaries. 

In  the  western  world,  the  first  Jesuit  missionary 
work  was  begun  in  the  Portuguese  possession  of 
Brazil.  After  Gabral  had  accidentally  discovered 
the  continent  in  1500,  a  number  of  Portuguese  nobles 
established  important  colonies  along  the  coast;  and 
when  subsequently  some  French  Calvinists,  under 
Villegagnon,  attempted  a  settlement  on  the  Rio 
Janeiro,  Thomas  da  Sousa  was  commissioned  by  the 
king  to  unite  the  scattered  Portuguese  settlements 
and  drive  out  the  French  intruders.  He  chose  the 
Bay  of  All  Saints  as  his  central  position,  and  there 
built  the  city  of  San  Salvador.  Fortifications  were 
thrown  up;  a  cathedral,  a  governor's  palace  and  a 
custom  house  were  erected,  and  a  great  number  of 
houses  were  built  for  the  settlers.  Unlike  France 
and  England,  Spain  and  Portugal  lavished  money  on 
their  colonies.  With  da  SouSa  were  six  Jesuit  mission- 
aries, chief  of  whom  was  the  great  Nobrega.  They 
were  given  an  extensive  tract  of  land  some  distance 
from  San  Salvador,  and  there  in  course  of  time  the 
city  of  Sao  Paolo  arose.  There  was  plenty  to  do 
with  the  degenerate  whites  in  the  various  settlements, 
but  the  savages  presented  the  greatest  problem. 
They  were  cannibals  of  an  advanced  type,  and  no 
food  delighted  them  more  than  human  flesh.  To 
make  matters  worse,  the  white  settlers  encouraged 
them  in  their  horrible  practices,  probably  in  the  hope, 
that  they  would  soon  eat  each  other  up. 

Nobrega  determined  to  put  an  end  to  these  abomi- 
nations, he  went  among  the  Indians,  spoke  to  them 
kindly,  healed  their  bodily  ailments,  defended  them 
against  the  whites,  and  was  soon  regarded  by  these 
wild  creatures  as  their  friend  and  benefactor.  At 


88  The  Jesuits 

last,  concluding  that  the  time  had  come  for  a  master 
stroke,  he  one  day  walked  straight  into  a  group  of 
women  who  were  preparing  a  mangled  body  for  the 
fire,  and  with  the  help  of  his  companions  carried  off 
the  corpse.  This  was  sweeping  away  in  an  instant 
all  their  past  traditions,  and  as  a  consequence  the  whole 
tribe  rose  in  fury  and  swarmed  around  the  walls  of 
the  city  determined  to  make  an  end  of  the  whites. 
But  Sousa  called  out  his  troops,  and,  whether  the 
Indians  were  frightened  by  the  cannon  or  mollified 
by  the  kind  words  of  the  governor,  the  result  was  that 
they  withdrew  and  promised  to  stop  eating  human 
flesh.  This  audacious  act  had  the  additional  effect 
of  exciting  the  anger  of  the  colonists  against  Nobrega 
and  his  associates.  The  point  had  been  made,  however, 
that  cannibalism  was  henceforth  a  punishable  offence 
and  great  results  followed.  Tribe  after  tribe  accepted 
the  missionaries  and  were  converted  to  Christianity. 
But  it  was  very  hard  to  keep  them  steady  in  their 
faith.  A  pestilence  or  a  dearth  of  food  was  enough 
to  make  them  fall  into  their  old  habits;  and  they  were 
moreover,  easily  swayed  by  the  half-breeds  who, 
time  and  time  again,  induced  them  to  rise  against 
the  whites.  But  da  Sousa  was  an  exceptional  man, 
and  had  the  situation  well  in  hand.  He  pursued  the 
Indians  to  their  haunts,  and,  as  his  punitive  expeditions 
were  nearly  always  headed  by  a  priest  with  his  uplifted 
cross  he  often  brought  them  to  terms  without  the 
shedding  of  blood. 

Another  obstacle  in  this  work  of  subjugation  was 
found  in  the  remnants  of  Villegagnon's  old  French 
garrison.  At  one  time  they  had  succeeded  in  uniting 
all  the  savages  of  the  country  in  a  league  to  exterminate 
the  Portuguese.  Villegagnon's  supposedly  impreg- 
nable fort  was  taken  and  battle  after  battle  was  won 
by  the  Portuguese,  but  the  war  seemed  never  to  end. 


Ends  of  the  Earth  89 

At  last  Nobrega  took  the  matter  in  his  own  hands. 
"  Let  me  go,"  he  said,  "  to  see  if  I  cannot  arrange 
terms  of  peace  with  the  enemy."  It  was  a  perilous 
undertaking,  for  it  might  mean  that  in  a  few  days 
his  body  would  be  roasting  over  a  fire  in  the  forest, 
in  preparation  for  a  savage  banquet.  But  that  did 
not  deter  him.  He  and  his  fellow-missionary  Anchieta 
set  out  and  found  the  Indians  wild  with  rage  against 
the  whites.  Plea  after  plea  was  made,  but  in  vain. 
At  last,  he  got  them  to  make  some  concession,  and 
then  returned  to  explain  matters  to  the  governor, 
leaving  Anchieta  alone  with  the  Indians.  They  did 
him  no  harm,  however;  on  the  contrary,  he  won  their 
hearts  by  his  kindness  and  amazed  them  by  his  long 
prayers,  his  purity  of  life,  his  prophecies  and  his 
miraculous  powers.  Month  alter  month  went  by  and 
yet  there  was  no  news  from  Nobrega.  Finally  the 
governor,  accepting  the  conditions  insisted  on  by  the 
Indians,  yielded,  and  peace  was  made. 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  the  lonely  man  who 
had  stayed  all  this  while  in  the  forest,  Jose  Anchieta, 
was  a  perfect  master  of  Latin,  Castilian  and  Portuguese; 
besides  being  somewhat  skilled  in  medicine,  he  was 
an  excellent  poet  and  even  a  notable  dramatist.  He 
composed  grammars  and  dictionaries  of  the  native 
language,  after  he  returned  to  where  pen  and  ink 
were  available;  and  it  is  said  he  put  into  print  a  long 
poem  which  he  had  meditated  and  memorized  during 
his  six  terrible  months  of  captivity.  He  died  in  1597; 
but  before  departing  for  heaven,  he  saw  the  little 
band  of  six  Jesuits  who  had  landed  with  Nobrega 
increased  to  one  hundred  and  twenty,  and  when  his 
career  ended  one  hundred  more  rushed  from  Portugal 
to  fill  the  gap. 

As  for  Nobrega,  the  day  before  he  died,  he  went 
around  to  call  on  his  friends.  "  Where  are  you  going  ? " 


90  The  Jesuits 

they  asked  him.  "  Home  to  my  own  country,"  he 
answered,  and  on  the  morrow  they  were  kneeling 
around  his  coffin.  Southey  says  that  "  so  well  had 
Nobrega  and  Anchieta  trained  their  disciples  that  in 
the  course  of  half  a  century,  all  the  nations  along  the 
coast  of  Brazil,  as  far  as  the  Portuguese  settlements 
extended,  were  collected  in  villages  under  their  superin- 
tendence "  (History  of  Brazil,  x,  310).  "  Nobrega 
died  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,"  says  Ranke, 
"  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  we  find 
the  proud  edifice  of  the  Catholic  Church  completely 
reared  in  South  America.  There  were  five  arch- 
bishoprics, twenty-seven  bishoprics,  four  hundred 
monasteries  and  innumerable  parish  churches."  Of 
course,  with  due  regard  to  Ranke,  all  that  was  not  the 
work  of  Jesuits,  but  men  of  his  kind  see  "  Jesuit  "  in 
everything.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  they  con- 
tributed in  no  small  degree  to  bring  about  this  result. 
In  1570  Azevedo  conducted  thirty-nine  Jesuits 
from  Madeira  to  Brazil.  Simultaneously,  thirty  more 
in  two  other  ships  set  sail  from  Lisbon  for  the  same 
destination.  But  the  day  after  Azevedo's  party  had 
left  Madeira,  the  famous  Huguenot  pirate,  Jaques 
Soria,  swooped  down  upon  them,  hacked  them  to 
pieces  on  the  deck,  and  then  threw  the  mangled  remains 
to  the  sharks.  The  amazing  Southey  narrates  this 
event  as  follows:  "  He  did  by  the  Jesuits  as  they 
would  have  done  by  him  and  all  their  sect: — put 
them  to  death."  When  the  news  reached  Madeira, 
the  brethren  of  the  martyrs  sang  a  Te  Deum  which 
Southey  informs  us,  "  was  as  much  the  language  of 
policy  as  of  fanaticism."  Four  days  later,  one  English 
and  four  French  cruisers  which  Southey  fails  to  tell 
us  were  commanded  by  the  Huguenot  Capdeville, 
caught  the  other  missionaries  and  did  their  work  so 
effectually,  that  of  the  sixty-nine  splendid  men  whom 


Ends  of  the  Earth  91 

Azevedo  started  out  with,  only  one  arrived  in  Brazil. 
The  struggle  did  not  end  with  the  massacre.  Sixty 
years  afterwards  the  same  enemy  attacked  the  mis- 
sions of  Pernambuco  in  Brazil  where,  "  one  hundred 
and  fifty  tribes  "—  a  Protestant  annalist  calls  them 
"hordes" — had  been  brought  into  alliance  with  the 
Portuguese,  and  were  rapidly  making  progress  both 
in  Christianity  and  civilization;  on  Good  Friday  in  the 
year  1633  the  freebooters,  passing  at  midnight  through 
the  smoking  ruins  of  Olinda,  attacked  Garassu  in  the 
early  morning,  while  the  inhabitants  were  assembled 
at  Mass,  with  the  result,  says  Southey,  that  "  the 
men  who  came  their  way  were  slaughtered,  the  women 
were  stripped,  and  the  plunderers  with  cruelty  tore 
away  ear-rings  through  the  ear-flap,  and  cut  off  fingers 
for  the  sake  of  the  rings  that  were  upon  them.  They 
then  plundered  and  burnt  the  town." 

Similar  heroism  was  shown  in  other  parts  of  the 
world  about  this  time.  Thus  in  1549  Ribeira  was 
poisoned  at  Amboina;  a  like  fate  overtook  Gonzales 
in  1551  at  Bazaim,  India;  in  1555  three  Jesuits  were 
wrecked  on  a  desert  island  while  on  their  way  to  the 
East,  and  died  of  starvation;  in  1573,  Alvares,  the 
visitor  of  Japan  and  four  companions  were  lost  at  sea; 
and  in  1575  another  Jesuit  died  at  Angola  in  Africa 
after  fourteen  years'  cruel  imprisonment. 

Over  all  this  splendor,  however,  there  rests  a  shadow. 
Simon  Rodriguez,  who  was  so  to  speak  the  creator  of 
all  this  apostolic  enthusiasm,  came  very  near  being 
expelled  from  the  Society.  He  was  the  idol  of  Portugal 
and  the  intimate  friend  and  adviser  of  King  John  III, 
who  was  untiring  in  promoting  missionary  enterprise 
in  the  vast  regions  over  which  he  held  sway,  both  in 
the  Eastern  and  Western  world.  This  association, 
however,  involved  frequent  visits  to  the  court,  and 
the  attractions  of  the  work  soon  grew  on  Rodriguez, 


92  The  Jesuits 

though  with  his  characteristic  unsteadiness  he  was 
writing  to  Xavier  and  others  to  say  that  he  was  longing 
to  go  out  to  the  missions,  a  longing  he  never  gratified. 
Moreover,  his  judgment  in  the  choice  of  missionaries 
was  of  the  worst.  Untrained  novices  were  sent  out 
in  great  numbers  and  were  naturally  found  unfit  for 
the  work  with  the  result  that  they  had  to  return  to 
Europe.  Meantime  another  influence  was  effacing  the 
real  spirit  of  the  Society  from  the  soul  of  this  chosen 
man  whom  Ignatius  himself  had  trained.  A  craze 
for  bodily  mortifications  had  swept  over  Portugal, 
and  Brou  in  his  "  Vie  de  St.  Francois  Xavier  "  tells  us: 
that  it  was  not  uncommon  to  see  eight  or  ten  thousand 
flagellants  scourging  themselves  as  they  walked  pro- 
cessionally  through  the  streets  of  Lisbon.  The  Jesuits 
there  were  naturally  affected  by  the  movement,  with 
the  result  that  although  intense  fervor  was  displayed 
in  the  practice  of  this  virtue,  domestic  discipline 
suffered.  The  supreme  fact  that  obedience  was  the 
characteristic  trait  of  the  Society  had  never  been 
thoroughly  appreciated  or  understood  by  Simon  Rodri- 
guez, although  he  was  one  of  the  first  companions 
of  St.  Ignatius. 

Astrain  in  his  "  Historia  de  la  Compania  de  Jesus  en 
la  Asistencia  de  Espana  ",  does  not  mince  matters  on 
this  point  (I,  xix).  Indeed,  the  provincialship  of 
Rodriguez  in  Portugal  almost  brought  about  a  tragedy 
in  the  history  of  the  Society.  Yielding  to  the  popular 
craze  for  public  penances,  his  subjects  paid  little 
attention  to  mortification  of  the  will,  with  the  result 
that  the  defections  from  the  Society  in  that  country, 
both  in  number  and  quality,  amounted  to  a  public 
scandal.  Finally,  the  removal  of  Rodriguez  became 
imperative,  but,  unfortunately,  his  successor,  Father 
Miro,  was  deplorably  lacking  in  the  very  elements  of 
prudence.  Disregarding  the  advice  of  Francis  Borgia 


Ends  of  the  Earth  93 

and  of  the  official  visitor,  de  Torres,  who  were  sent 
with  him  as  advisers,  he  went  alone  into  Portugal 
and  abruptly  removed  Rodriguez  from  his  post.  As 
Rodriguez  was  almost  adored  then  by  the  people  of 
Portugal  and  was  very  much  admired  and  beloved  by 
King  John  III  and  by  the  whole  royal  family,  they 
should  have  been  first  approached  and  the  reason  of 
the  change  explained.  To  pass  by  such  devoted 
friends  who  had  lavished  favors  on  the  Society  and 
who  could  do  so  much  harm,  if  alienated,  was  not 
only  highly  impolitic  but  grossly  discourteous.  Anyone 
else  but  John  III  might  well  not  only  have  driven 
them  from  Portugal  but  have  withdrawn  them  from 
Brazil  and  the  Indies,  with  the  result  that  the  Society 
would  probably  never  have  had  an  Anchieta  or  a 
Francis  Xavier.  Happily  such  a  calamity  was  averted. 
Miro's  subsequent  administration  was  in  keeping  with 
his  initial  act,  and  when  at  last  the  visitor  arrived 
and  restored  normal  conditions  in  the  province  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  members  of  the 
province  had  either  left  the  Society  or  had  to  be 
dismissed. 

Rodriguez  was  summoned  to  Rome  and  might  have 
been  pardoned  immediately  had  he  avowed  his  fault, 
but  he  demanded  a  canonical  trial.  Several  grave 
fathers  were,  therefore,  appointed  and  their  sentence 
was  extremely  severe,  but  Ignatius  made  them  recon- 
sider it  again  and  again,  and  make  it  milder.  He  even 
modified  their  final  verdict.  Rodriguez  never  went 
back  again  to  Portugal  in  an  official  capacity. 

This  humiliating  episode  is  somewhat  slurred  over  by 
Cretineau-Joly,  but  the  Jesuit  historians  like  Jouvancy, 
Brou,  Astrain,  Valignano,  Pollen  make  no  attempt  to 
conceal  or  palliate  it.  The  failure  of  Rodriguez  only 
illustrates  the  difficulty  that  St.  Ignatius  had  in  making 
his  followers  grasp  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Society. 


94  The  Jesuits 

Paulsen,  the  German  Protestant  historian,  is  shocked 
to  find  that  in  Jesuits,  generally,  there  exists  "  some- 
thing of  the  silent  but  incessant  action  of  the  powers 
of  nature.  Without  passion,  without  appeals  to  war, 
without  agitation,  without  intemperate  zeal,  they 
never  cease  to  advance,  and  are  scarcely  ever  compelled 
to  take  a  step  backward.  Sureness,  prudence  and 
forethought  characterize  each  of  their  movements. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  are  not  lovable  qualities," 
he  says,  "  for  whoever  acts  without  some  human 
weakness  is  never  amiable."  The  "  step  backward  " 
made  by  Rodriguez,  in  this  instance,  ought  to  satisfy 
Paulsen 's  requirements  for  that  amiability  which, 
according  to  him,  is  associated  with  "  human  weak- 
ness." One  need  not  be  reminded  that  it  is  a  curious 
psychology  that  can  find  amiability  in  a  disease  or 
a  deformity.  The  amiability  is  in  the  person  who 
puts  up  with  it,  not  in  the  offender.  Henri  Joly  in 
his  "  Psychologic  des  Saints,"  furnishes  another  example 
of  this  disregard  of  facts  which  so  often  affects  the 
vision  of  a  man  in  pursuit  of  a  theory.  To  prove  the 
marvellous  power  which  Ignatius  exerted  over  men, 
he  tells  us  that  when  Rodriguez  was  summoned  to 
Rome  "  the  only  sentiment  in  his  mind  was  that  of 
almost  delirious  joy,  at  again  seeing  the  companion  of 
his  youth,  his  friend  and  master."  The  facts  narrated 
above  would  imply  that  there  was  anything  but 
delirious  joy  in  the  mind  of  Rodriguez  before,  during 
or  after  his  trial,  and  the  facts  also  show  that  some- 
times it  takes  more  than  the  marvellous  power  of  a 
St.  Ignatius  to  control  even  a  holy  man  under  the 
influence  of  a  passion  or  a  delusion. 

This  incident  also  disposes  of  the  hallucination 
that  Jesuits  are  all  run  in  the  same  mould  and  hence 
easily  recognizable  as  members  of  the  Order.  This 
is  far  from  being  the  case.  It  is  true  that  as  the  Society 


Ends  of  the  Earth  95 

is  governed  to  a  certain  extent  on  military  principles, 
cheerful  and  prompt  obedience  is  its  characteristic. 
The  General  is  supreme  commander  and  is  in  touch 
with  every  member  of  the  organization ;  he  can  tell  in  a 
moment  where  the  individual  is,  what  he  is  doing  and 
what  are  his  good  qualities  and  defects.  He  can 
assign  him  to  any  country  or  any  post ;  refusal  to  obey 
is  absolutely  out  of  the  question.  Such  is  the  special 
trait  of  the  Society,  but  apart  from  this,  it  is  an  aggre- 
gation of  as  disparate  units  as  can  possibly  be  imagined. 
Men  of  all  races,  conditions,  dispositions,  aspirations 
and  attainments,  Americans,  English,  French,  Italian, 
Spanish,  Syrians,  Hungarians,  Hindoos,  Chinese, 
Japanese,  Malgache,  and  others  live  in  the  same  house, 
follow  the  same  rules,  and  maintain  absolute  peace 
with  each  other.  All  infractions  of  brotherly  love 
are  frowned  upon  and  severely  punished,  and  continued 
dissension  or  rebellion  means  expulsion.  These  men, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  do  not  shirk  danger  — 
like  genuine  soldiers  they  covet  it;  nor  are  they  de- 
pressed by  the  repeated  exiles,  expulsions,  spoliations 
and  persecutions-,  to  which  the  Society  has  been 
always  subject.  Taught  by  experience  of  the  past, 
they  know  that  they  will  emerge  from  the  struggle 
stronger  and  better  than  before  and  will  win  further 
distinction  in  the  battle  for  God. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CONSPICUOUS  PERSONAGES 

Ignatius  —  Lafnez  —  Borgia  —  Bellarmine  —  Toletits  —  Lessius  — 
Maldonado  —  Sudrez  —  Lugo  —  Valencia  —  Petavius  — Warsewicz 
—  Nicolai  —  Possevin  —  Vieira  —  Mercurian. 

ST.  IGNATIUS  died  on  July  31,  1556.  During  his 
brief  fifteen  years  as  General,  he  had  seen  some  of 
his  sons  distinguishing  themselves  in  one  of  the  greatest 
councils  of  the  Church;  others  turning  back  the  tide 
of  Protestantism  in  Germany  and  elsewhere;  others 
again,  winning  a  large  part  of  the  Orient  to  the  Faith; 
and  still  others  reorganizing  Catholic  education  through- 
out regenerated  Europe,  on  a  scale  that  was  bewildering 
both  in  the  multitude  of  the  schools  they  established 
and  the  splendor  of  their  success.  Great  saints  were 
being  produced  in  the  Society  and  also  outside  of  it 
through  its  ministrations.  Meantime,  its  development 
had  been  so  great  that  the  little  group  of  men  which 
had  gathered  around  him  a  few  years  before  had 
grown  to  a  thousand,  with  a  hundred  establishments  in 
every  part  of  the  world. 

Magnificent  as  was  this  achievement  he  did  not  allow 
it  to  reflect  any  glory  upon  himself  personally.  On  the 
contrary,  he  withdrew  more  and  more  from  public 
observation,  and  devoted  to  the  establishment  of  his 
multiplied  and  usual  charities,  among  the  humblest 
and  most  abandoned  classes  of  the  city  of  Rome, 
what  time  was  left  him  from  the  absorbing  care  of 
directing,  advising,  exhorting  and  inspiring  his  sons 
who  were  scattered  over  the  earth  in  ever  changing 
and  dangerous  situations.  The  palaces  of  the  great 
rarely,  if  ever,  saw  him,  and  he  was  the  most  positive  and 

96 


Conspicuous  Personages  97 

persistent  antithesis  of  what  he  is  so  commonly  accused 
of  being:  a  schemer,  a  plotter,  a  politician,  a  poisoner 
of  public  morality  and  the  like.  Nor  was  he  seeking 
to  exercise  a  dominating  influence  either  in  the  Church 
or  State,  as  he  is  calumniously  charged  with  doing. 
The  glory  of  God  and  the  advancement  of  the  spiritual 
kingdom  on  earth  was  his  only  thought,  and  so  far 
was  he  from  imagining  that  the  Society  was  an  essential 
factor  in  the  Church's  organization  that  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  if  it  were  utterly  destroyed,  or  as 
he  expressed  it,  "  if  it  were  to  dissolve  like  salt  in  water," 
a  quarter  of  an  hour's  recollection  in  God  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  console  him  and  restore  peace  to  his 
soul,  provided  the  disaster  had  not  been  brought 
about  by  his  fault. 

He  was  not,  as  he  has  often  been  charged  with 
being,  stern,  severe,  arbitrary, harsh,  tyrannical;  on  the 
contrary,  his  manner  was  most  winning  and  attractive. 
He  was  fond  of  flowers ;  music  had  the  power  of  making 
him  forget  the  greatest  bodily  pain,  and  the  stars  at 
night  filled  his  soul  with  rapturous  delight.  He  would 
listen  with  infinite  patience  to  the  humblest  and 
youngest  person,  and  every  measure  of  importance 
before  being  put  into  execution  was  submitted  to  dis- 
cussion by  all  who  had  any  concern  in  it.  He  would 
show  intense  and  outspoken  indignation,  it  is  true,  at 
flagrant  faults  and  offences,  especially  if  committed  by 
those  who  were  in  authority  in  the  Society;  his  wrath, 
however,  was  vented  not  against  the  culprit,  but 
against  the  fault.  Moreover,  while  reprehending,  he 
kept  his  feelings  under  absolute  control.  Indeed,  his 
longanimity  in  the  cases  both  of  Rodriguez  and  Boba- 
dilla  is  astounding,  and  it  is  very  doubtful  if  St.  Francis 
Xavier,  whom  he  wanted  to  be  his  successor,  would 
have  been  as  tolerant  or  as  gentle.  In  his  directions 
for  works  to  be  undertaken  he  was  not  meticulous  nor 
7 


98  The  Jesuits 

minute,  but  left  the  widest  possible  margin  for  personal 
initiative ;  nor  would  he  tolerate  an  obedience  that  was 
prompted  by  servile  fear.  He  continually  insisted 
that  the  only  motive  of  action  in  the  Society  was  love 
of  God  and  the  neighbor. 

The  gentle  Lionel  Johnson,  poet  though  he  was,  gives 
us  a  fairly  accurate  appreciation  of  the  character  of 
Saint  Ignatius.  "  In  the  Saints  of  Spain,"  he  says, 
"  there  is  frequently  prominent  the  feature  of  chivalry. 
Even  the  great  Saint  James,  apostle  and  Patriarch  of 
Spain,  appears  in  Spanish  tradition  and  to  Spanish 
imagination  as  an  hidalgo,  a  knight  in  gleaming  mail 
who  spurs  his  white  war  horse  against  the  Moor.  And  of 
none  among  them  is  this  more  true  than  of  the  founder 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  Cardinal  Newman,  describing 
him  in  his  most  famous  sermon,  finds  no  phrase  more 
fitting  than  '  the  princely  patriarch,  St.  Ignatius,  the 
Saint  George  of  the  modern  world  with  his  chivalrous 
lance  run  through  his  writhing  foe.'  He  was  ever  a 
fighter,  a  captain-general  of  men,  indomitable,  daunt- 
less. The  secret  of  his  character  lies  in  his  will;  in  its 
disciplined  strength;  its  unfailing  practicality;  its 
singleness  and  its  power  upon  other  wills.  It  was 
hardly  a  Francisan  sweetness  that  won  to  him  his 
followers  who  from  the  famous  six  at  Montmartre  grew 
so  swiftly  into  a  great  band;  it  was  not  supremacy  of 
intellect  or  of  utterance;  it  was  not  even  the  witness  of 
his  intense  devotion  and  self-denial.  It  was  his 
unequalled  precision  and  tenacity  of  purpose;  it  was 
his  will  and  its  method.  But  we  can  detect  no  trace 
of  that  proud  personal  ambition  and  imperiousness 
often  ascribed  to  him.  He  simply  had  learned  a  way 
of  life  that  was  profitable  to  religion  which  wras  all  in 
all  to  him,  and  he  could  not  be  lukewarm  in  its  service. 
Noblesse  oblige,  and  a  Christian  holds  a  patent  from 
the  King  of  kings.  The  Jesuit  A.  M.  D.  G.  was  his 


Conspicuous  Personages  99 

ruling  principle.  The  former  heroic  soldier  of  Spain 
was  still  a  soldier,  a  swordsman,  a  strategist,  but  in  a 
holy  war.  His  eyes  were  always  turned  towards  the 
battle;  but  he  was  far  from  forbidding,  harsh,  grim. 
He  was  tender  and  stern  and  like  Dante  kept  his 
thoughts  fixed  on  the  mysteries  of  good  and  evil." 

His  death  was  in  keeping  with  his  life.  There  was 
no  show,  no  ostentation,  nothing  "  dramatic  "  about 
it,  as  Henri  Joly  imagines  in  his  "  Psychologie  des 
Saints."  There  was  no  solemn  gathering  of  his  sons 
about  his  bedside,  no  parting  instruction  or  benediction, 
as  one  would  have  expected  from  such  a  remarkable 
man  who  had  established  a  religious  order  upon  which 
the  eyes  of  the  world  were  fixed.  He  was  quite  aware 
that  his  last  hour  had  come,  and  he  simply  told 
Polanco,  his  secretary,  to  go  and  ask  for  the  Pope's 
blessing.  As  the  physicians  had  not  said  positively 
that  there  was  any  immediate  danger,  Polanco  inquired 
if  he  might  defer  doing  so  for  the  moment,  as  there 
was  something  very  urgent  to  be  attended  to;  where- 
upon the  dying  Saint  made  answer:  "  I  would  prefer 
that  you  should  go  now,  but  do  as  seems  best."  These 
were  his  last  words.  He  left  no  will  and  no  instructions, 
and  what  is,  at  first,  incomprehensible,  he  did  not 
even  ask  for  Extreme  Unction  —  possibly  because  he 
was  aware  that  the  physicians  disagreed  about  the 
seriousness  of  his  malady,  and  he  was  unwilling  to 
discredit  any  of  them;  possibly,  also,  he  did  so  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  rule  that  he  laid  down  for  his 
sons  "  to  show  absolute  obedience  in  time  of  sickness 
to  those  who  have  care  of  the  body."  When  at  last 
they  saw  that  he  was  actually  dying  someone  ran  for 
the  holy  oils,  but  Ignatius  was  already  in  his  agony. 

For  one  reason  or  another,  he  had  not  designated 
the  vicar,  who,  according  to  the  Constitution,  was  to 
govern  the  Society,  until  a  General  was  regularly 


100  The  Jesuits 

elected.  Hence,  as  the  condition  of  the  times  prevented 
the  assembling  of  the  professed  from  the  various 
countries  of  Europe,  the  fathers  who  were  in  Rome 
elected  Lainez.  He,  therefore,  summoned  the  congre- 
gation for  Easter,  1557,  but  it  happened  just  then  that 
Philip  II  and  the  Pope  were  at  odds  with  each  other, 
and  no  Spaniard  was  allowed  to  go  to  Rome.  Because 
of  that,  Borgia,  Araoz  and  others  sent  in  a  petition 
for  the  congregation  to  meet  at  Barcelona.  This 
angered  the  Pope,  and  he  asked  Lainez,  who  put  the 
case  before  him:  "  Do  you  want  to  join  the  schism 
of  that  heretic  Philip?"  Nevertheless,  when  the  papal 
nuncio  at  Madrid  supported  the  request  of  the  Spanish 
Jesuits,  his  holiness  relented  somewhat,  and  said  he 
would  think  of  it. 

The  situation  was  critical  enough  with  a  Pope  who 
was  none  too  friendly,  when  something  very  disedifying 
and  embarrassing  occurred.  The  irrepressible  Boba- 
dilla  who  had  not  only  voted  for  the  election  of  Lainez 
as  vicar,  but  had  served  under  him  for  a  year,  suddenly 
discovered  that  the  whole  previous  proceeding  was 
invalid,  and  he  pretended,  that,  because  St.  Ignatius 
had  failed  to  name  a  vicar,  the  government  of  the 
Society  devolved  on  the  general  body  of  the  professed. 
The  matter  was  discussed  by  the  Fathers  and  he  was 
overruled,  but  he  still  persisted  and  demanded  the 
decision  of  Carpi,  the  cardinal  protector  of  the  Society. 
When  that  official  heard  the  case,  he  decided  against 
Bobadilla  who  forthwith  appealed  to  the  Pope.  This 
time  the  Cardinal  assigned  to  investigate  was  no  other 
than  the  future  St.  Pius  V.  He  took  on  the  situation 
at  a  glance  and  dismissed  Bobadilla  almost  with 
contempt.  There  was  another  offender,  Cogordan,  who 
does  not  appear  to  have  objected  to  Lainez  personally 
but  who  sent  a  written  communication  to  his  holiness 
saying  that  Lainez  and  some  others  really  wanted  to 


Conspicuous  Personages         101 

go  to  Spain,  so  as  to  be  free  from  Roman  control. 
This  so  incensed  the  Pope  that  Lainez,  though  greatly 
admired  by  Paul  IV,  obtained  an  audience  only  with 
the  greatest  difficulty,  and  was  then  ordered  to  hand 
over  the  Constitutions  for  examination.  Fortunately, 
the  same  holy  Inquisitor  was  sent,  and  Cogordan  never 
forgot  the  lesson  he  received  on  that  occasion  for  daring 
to  suggest  such  a  thing  about  Lainez.  In  the  meantime, 
Philip  had  allowed  the  Spanish  Jesuits  to  go  to  Rome, 
and  Lainez  was  elected  General  on  July  2,  1558.  As 
has  been  said  in  speaking  of  Rodriguez,  this  incident 
is  another  illustration  of  the  tremendous  difficulty  of 
the  task  St.  Ignatius  undertook  when  he  gathered 
around  him  those  unusually  brilliant  men,  who  were 
accustomed  to  take  part  in  the  diets  of  the  Empire, 
to  be  counsellors  of  princes  and  kings  and  even  popes. 
He  proposed  to  make  them  all,  as  he  said  "  think  the 
same  thing  according  to  the  Apostle."  He  succeeded 
ultimately. 

The  splendid  work  performed  by  Lainez  at  the 
Council  of  Trent  had  naturally  made  him  a  prominent 
figure  in  the  Church  at  that  time.  Personally,  also 
he  was  most  acceptable  to  the  reigning  Pontiff,  Paul  IV; 
nevertheless,  owing  to  outside  pressure,  there  was 
imminent  danger  on  several  occasions  of  serious 
changes  being  made  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Society. 
The  Pope  had  been  dissuaded  from  urging  most  of 
them,  but  he  refused  to  be  satisfied  on  one  point, 
namely  the  recitation  of  the  Divine  Office.  He  insisted 
that  it  must  be  sung  in  choir,  as  was  the  rule  in  other 
religious  orders.  Lainez  had  to  yield,  and  for  a  time 
the  Society  conformed  to  the  decision,  but  the  Pope 
soon  died,  and  in  the  course  of  a  year,  his  successor, 
Pius  IV,  declared  the  order  to  be  merely  the  personal 
wish  of  his  predecessor  and  not  a  decree  of  the  Holy 
See. 


102  The  Jesuits 

During  this  generalate  there  were  serious  troubles  in 
various  parts  of  Europe.  Thus,  in  Spain,  when 
Charles  V  withdrew  into  the  solitude  of  Yuste  he  was 
very  anxious  to  have  as  a  companion  in  retirement  his 
friend  of  many  years,  Francis  Borgia.  It  was  hard  to 
oppose  the  expressed  wish  of  such  a  potentate  as 
Charles,  but  Lainez  succeeded,  and  Borgia  continued 
to  exercise  his  great  influence  in  Spain  to  protect  his 
brethren  in  the  storm  which  was  then  raging  against 
them.  There  were  troubles,  also,  throughout  Italy. 
A  veritable  persecution  had  started  in  Venice;  an 
attempt  was  made  to  alienate  St.  Charles  Borromeo  in 
Milan;  in  Palermo,  the  rector  of  the  college  was 
murdered.  The  General  himself  had  to  go  to  France 
to  face  the  enemies  of  the  Faith  at  the  famous  Colloquy 
of  Poissy;  Canisius  was  continuing  his  hard  fight  in 
Germany;  there  were  the  martyrdoms  of  two  Jesuits 
in  India  where,  as  in  Brazil,  the  members  of  the  Society 
were  displaying  the  sublimest  heroism  in  the  persecution 
of  their  perilous  missionary  work. 

Lainez  died  in  1565,  and  was  succeeded  by  Francis 
Borgia,  who  for  many  years  had  been  the  most  con- 
spicuous grandee  of  Spain.  He  was  Marquis  of 
Lombay,  Duke  of  Gandia,  and  for  three  years  had  filled 
the  office  of  Viceroy  of  Catalonia.  His  intimacy  with 
the  Emperor  Charles  V,  apart  from  his  great  personal 
qualities,  naturally  resulted  in  having  every  honor 
showered  upon  him.  Astrain,  in  his  history  of  the 
Society  in  Spain,  notes  the  difference  in  the  point  of 
view  from  which  the  Borgia  family  is  regarded  by 
Spaniards  and  by  other  mortals.  The  former  always 
think  of  the  saintly  Francis,  the  latter  see  only 
Alexander  VI.  It  is  not  surprising,  however,  for  it  is 
one  of  the  weaknesses  of  humanity  to  exult  in  its 
glories  and  to  be  blind  to  its  defects.  Francis  Borgia 
was  the  great-grandson  of  Alexander  on  the  paternal, 


Conspicuous  Personages          103 

and  of  King  Ferdinand  on  the  maternal,  side;  there 
are,  however,  bar  sinisters  on  both  descents  that  are 
not  pleasant  to  contemplate,  and  Suau  says,  "  he  was 
unfortunate  in  his  ancestry." 

Born  on  October  28,  1510,  Borgia  began  his  studies 
at  Saragossa,  interrupting  them  for  a  short  space  to  be 
the  page  of  the  Infanta  Catarina,  daughter  of  Joanna 
the  Mad.  At  eighteen,  he  was  one  of  the  brilliant 
figures  of  the  court  of  Charles  V.  At  nineteen,  he 
married  Eleanor  de  Qastro,  who  belonged  to  the  highest 
nobility  of  Portugal,  and  at  that  time  he  was  made 
Marquis  of  Lombay.  When  he  was  twenty-eight,  the 
famous  incident  occurred,  which  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  so  much  oratorical  and  pictorial  exaggera- 
tion —  his  consternation  at  the  sight  of  the  corrupting 
remains  of  the  beautiful  Empress  Isabella,  and  his 
resolution  to  abandon  the  court  and  the  world  forever. 
Astrain  in  speaking  of  this  event  merely  says:  "  he  was 
profoundly  moved;"  Suau,  in  his  "  Histoire  de  Saint 
Francois  de  Borgia,"  makes  no  mention  of  any  perturba- 
tion of  mind  and  ascribes  Borgia's  vocation  rather  to 
subsequent  events.  The  Bollandists  do  not  vouch  for 
the  story  of  his  consternation,  but  note  that  he  was 
the  only  one  who  dared  to  approach  the  coffin,  the 
others  keeping  aloof  on  account  of  the  odor.  They  add 
that  his  biographers  make  him  say :  "  Enough  has  been 
given  to  worldly  princes."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  later 
on,  he  willingly  accepted  the  office  of  major  domo  to 
Prince  Philip,  who  was  about  to  marry  the  Infanta  of 
Portugal.  As  the  King  and  Queen  of  Portugal,  how- 
ever, refused  to  accept  him  in  that  capacity,  he  was  sim- 
ply disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  all  diplomatic  Europe  and 
was  compelled  to  keep  out  of  the  court  of  his  own  sov- 
ereign, for  three  whole  years.  "  This  and  other  serious 
trials,  at  that  period,"  says  Suau,  "  probably  developed 
in  him  the  work  of  santification  begun  at  Granada." 


104  The  Jesuits 

Borgia  was  thirty-six  years  of  age  when  his  wife 
died  in  1546,  and  he  then  consulted  Father  Faber, 
who  happened  to  be  in  Spain  at  the  time,  about  the 
advisability  of  entering  a  religious  order.  He  made 
the  Spiritual  Exercises  under  Oviedo,  and  determined  to 
enroll  himself  as  one  of  the  members  of  the  Compafiia 
founded  by  Ignatius,  with  whom  he  had  been  for  some 
time  in  communication.  He  was  accepted  and  given 
three  years  to  settle  his  wordly  concerns.  By  a  special 
rescript,  the  Pope  allowed  him  to  make  his  vows  of 
profession  immediately.  In  January,  1550,  he  was 
allowed  to  present  himself  for  ordination  to  the  priest- 
hood whenever  he  found  it  feasible.  On  August  20 
of  the  same  year,  he  obtained  the  degree  of  doctor  of 
theology  and  ten  days  later,  set  out  for  Rome  with 
a  small  retinue.  Accompanying  him  were  nine  Jesuits, 
among  whom  was  Father  Araoz,  the  provincial.  In 
every  city  he  was  officially  received,  the  nobility  going 
out  to  meet  him  at  Rome.  He  was  sumptuously 
lodged  in  the  Jesuit  house,  part  of  which  St.  Ignatius 
had  fitted  up  at  great  expense  to  do  honor  to  the 
illustrious  guest.  Soon,  however,  it  was  rumored  that 
he  was  to  be  made  a  cardinal,  whereupon  he  took 
flight,  making  all  haste  for  Spain,  without  any  of  the 
splendor  or  publicity  which  had  surrounded  him  three 
months  before.  His  only  purpose  was  to  escape 
observation.  Arriving  in  Spain,  he  visited  Loyola,  the 
birthplace  of  Ignatius,  and  then  fixed  his  residence  at 
the  hermitage  of  Ofiate,  where,  after  receiving  the 
Emperor's  leave,  he  renounced  all  his  honors  and 
possessions  in  favor  of  his  son  Charles.  He  was 
ordained  priest  on  May  23,  1551. 

After  six  months  spent  in  evangelizing  the  Basques, 
Borgia  was  sent  to  Portugal  to  put  an  end  to  the 
troubles  caused  by  Simon  Rodriguez,  but  did  not 
reach  that  country  until  1553.  Meantime,  sad  to  say, 


Conspicuous  Personages          105 

Father  Araoz  astounded  every  one  by  displaying  an 
intense  jealousy  of  Borgia,  who  had  been  made  in- 
dependent of  all  superiors  except  Ignatius  himself,  and 
he  demanded  that  his  former  friend  and  benefactor 
should  show  himself  less  in  public  and  give  evidence  of 
greater  humility.  His  complaints  were  incessant,  and 
unfortunately  an  accidental  unpopularity  involving  the 
whole  Borgia  family  which  just  then  supervened  gave 
some  color  to  the  charges.  In  the  meanwhile  the 
Pope  had  again  insisted  on  bestowing  the  cardinalitial 
honor  upon  Borgia,  and  for  a  moment  Nadal,  the 
Commissary  General  of  Spain,  was  afraid  that  it  might 
be  accepted,  not  out  of  any  ambition  on  the  part  of 
Francis,  but  because  of  his  profound  reverence  for  the 
will  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  especially  as  he  had  not 
as  yet  pronounced  the  simple  vow  of  the  professed 
against  the  reception  of  ecclesiastical  dignities.  Where- 
upon, Ignatius  sent  an  order  for  him  to  make  the  vow, 
and  from  that  forward  his  conscience  was  at  rest  on 
the  question  of  running  counter  to  the  desires  of  the 
Pope. 

In  1554  he  was  made  commissary  general  in  place  of 
Nadal,  who  had  been  summoned  to  Rome  to  assist 
Ignatius,  now  in  feeble  health.  The  appointment  of 
Borgia  to  such  a  post  was  most  extraordinary  for  the 
reason  that  he  had  been  but  such  a  short  time  in  the 
Society,  and  had  never  been  in  a  subordinate  position. 
The  difficulty  of  his  task  was  augmented  by  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  commissioned  to  divide  the  Spanish 
section  of  the  Society  into  four  distinct  provinces, 
and  to  assume  in  this  and  other  matters  the  duties  and 
functions  of  an  office  which  had  no  defined  limitations, 
and  which  would  inevitably  bring  him  into  conflict 
with  other  superiors.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  com- 
missariate  was  such  a  clumsy  contrivance  that  it  had 
soon  to  be  done  away  with. 


106  The  Jesuits 

Araoz  had  previously  been  at  odds  with  Nadal, 
but  he  found  it  still  more  difficult  to  get  along  with 
Borgia.  This  disedifying  antagonism  continued  for 
some  time,  and  it  is  said  that  the  old  worldly  superiority 
of  the  viceroy  showed  itself  occasionally  in  Borgia. 
His  dictatorial  methods  of  government,  his  resentment 
of  interference  with  his  plans,  even  when  Nadal  spoke 
to  him,  showed  that  he  was  not  yet  a  Jesuit  saint.  As 
if  he  still  possessed  unlimited  revenues  he  established 
no  less  than  twenty  new  houses;  and,  when  there  were 
not  sufficient  resources  to  carry  them  on,  he  expected 
his  subjects  to  live  in  a  penury  that  was  incompatible 
with  general  content  and  fatal  to  the  existence  of  the 
institutions.  Moreover,  his  old  propensity  for  great 
mortifications  manifested  itself  to  such  an  extent  that 
there  was  danger  of  the  Jesuits  under  him  becoming 
Carthusian  in  their  mode  of  life.  Indeed,  he  was  of 
opinion  that  the  old  monastic  prison  and  stocks  should 
be  introduced  into  the  Society,  and  he  sent  a  postu- 
latum  or  petition  to  that  effect  to  the  congregation 
which  elected  Lainez.  The  result  was  that  a  spirit 
of  revolt  began  to  mainfest  itself  in  Spain,  and  Nadal, 
who  was  temporarily  there,  was  happy  when  recalled 
to  Rome. 

How  all  this  can  be  reconciled  with  the  admittedly 
remarkable  prudence  of  St.  Ignatius  and  his  profound 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  those  he  had  to  deal 
with  is  difficult  to  say.  Had  he  perhaps  received 
some  divine  intimation  of  what  Borgia  was  yet  to  be? 
On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
these  isolated  instances  of  impatience,  authoritativeness, 
resentment  and  the  like,  naturally  attract  more  atten- 
tion when  seen  in  one  who  is  possessed  of  brilliant 
qualities  than  they  would  in  any  ordinary  personage. 
Moreover,  they  occurred  only  in  his  dealings  with 
Jesuits  of  the  same  official  standing,  and  were  never 


Conspicuous  Personages          107 

remarked  when  he  had  to  treat  with  the  rank  and  file 
who  were  entrusted  to  his  care  and  guidance.  They 
were,  in  any  case,  faults  of  judgment  and  not  of 
perversity  of  will.  Indeed  so  intent  was  he  on 
acquiring  the  virtue  of  obedience  that  he  fell  into  a 
state  of  almost  despondency  and  distress  when  he  was 
warned  that  Ignatius  would  disapprove  of  his  methods 
and  measures.  Finally,  he  was  then  only  on  the  way 
to  sanctity;  he  had  not  yet  achieved  it. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  Nadal  was  not 
at  all  pleased  with  the  attitude  of  Borgia  and  the 
other  Spanish  Jesuits,  when  the  call  for  the  election 
of  a  new  general  was  issued.  He  fancied  that  it  was 
the  beginning  of  a  schism.  When,  as  previously 
pointed  out,  Philip  II  allowed  the  Spanish  delegates 
to  go  to  the  congregation,  Borgia,  remained  in  Spain. 
The  fear  of  the  red  hat  still  haunted  him.  The  famous 
postulatum  about  the  prison  and  stocks  which  he  sent 
to  the  congregation  was,  of  course,  promptly  rejected. 
Borgia,  however,  had  other  reasons  not  to  go  to  Rome. 
Several  Spanish  cities  were  up  in  arms  against  the 
Society;  he  himself  was  assailed  openly  in  church  by 
Melchior  Cano;  a  book  he  had  written  or  was  accused 
of  having  written  was  condemned  by  the  Inquisition, 
and  he  expected  momentarily  to  be  arrested;  evil 
things  were  also  said  about  his  character.  Unfortu- 
nately, Araoz  took  advantage  of  all  this  and  began  to 
pen  a  series  of  denunciatory  letters  to  the  General 
against  Borgia,  and,  though  he  was  rebuked  for  them 
and  made  public  reparation  for  his  offense,  he  soon 
relapsed  into  his  customary  antagonism.  To  put  an 
end  to  it  all  Lainez  summoned  Borgia  to  Rome  and 
conferred  on  him  the  honor  of  assistant.  Even  that 
lesson  Araoz  failed  to  take  to  heart. 

Francis  reached  Rome  only  in  1 56 1 .  In  the  following 
year  when  Lainez  had  to  attend  the  re-opened  Council 


108  The  Jesuits 

of  Trent,  he  made  Borgia  vicar  general,  and,  when 
Lainez  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-three  in  January,  1565, 
the  congregation  which  was  convened  in  July  of  that 
year  elected  Borgia  in  his  place.  At  the  same  time 
stringent  laws  were  enacted  against  the  hasty  multi- 
plication of  houses  and  the  inevitable  lack  of  formation 
which  ensued.  This  was  a  notice  served  on  the  new 
General  to  control  his  zeal  in  that  direction.  Borgia 
instituted  novitiates  in  every  province;  he  circulated 
the  book  of  Exercises  and  laid  down  rules  for  common 
life,  which  on  account  of  the  enormous  growth  of  the 
Society  had  now  become  a  matter  of  primary  impor- 
tance. Instead  of  showing  any  proneness  to  the 
eremitical  life  or  wishing  to  impose  it  on  the  Society, 
he  gave  an  example  of  immense  and  intense  activity 
in  public  matters.  Thus  he  had  much  to  do  with  the 
revision  of  the  Bible,  the  translation  of  the 
"  Catechism  "  of  the  Council  of  Trent;  the  foundation 
of  Propaganda ;  and,  omitting  other  instances  of  his 
administrative  ability,  when  the  plague  broke  out  in 
Rome  in  1566,  he  so  successfully  organized  the  financial 
and  medical  machinery  of  the  city  that  two  years 
afterwards,  when  the  plague  appeared  again,  all  the 
public  funds  were  immediately  placed  in  his  hands. 
The  impression  that  his  administration  was  severe, 
exacting,  harsh  and  narrow  has  no  foundation  in  fact. 
It  is  sufficient  to  glance  at  the  five  bulky  volumes 
made  up  mainly  of  correspondence  and  documents  in 
the  "  Monumenta  Borgiana  "  to  be  convinced  that  the 
reverse  was  the  case.  There  is  a  kindliness,  a  gracious- 
ness,  even  a  joyousness  observable  in  them  on  every 
page.  He  even  kept  a  list  of  all  the  sick  in  the  Society, 
and  consoled  them  whenever  the  opportunity  offered. 
The  vastness  of  his  correspondence  is  simply  astounding ; 
his  letters  are  addressed  to  all  kinds  of  people,  the 
lowest  as  well  as  the  highest,  and  deal  with  every 


Conspicuous  Personages          109 

variety  of  topic.  Finally,  there  was  no  General  who 
developed  the  missions  of  the  Society  so  widely  and 
so  solidly  as  did  St.  Francis  Borgia.  He  reformed 
those  of  India  and  the  Far  East,  created  those  of 
America,  and  before  he  died  he  had  the  consolation 
of  knowing  that  sixty-six  of  his  sons  had  been  martyred 
for  the  Faith  during  his  Generalate.  The  discovery 
of  him  by  St.  Ignatius  was  an  inspiration,  for  Borgia 
is  one  of  the  great  glories  of  the  Society.  He  ended 
his  remarkable  life  by  a  splendid  act  of  obedience  to 
the  Pope  and  of  devotion  to  the  Church. 

On  June  27,  1571,  St.  Pius  V,  his  intimate  friend, 
requested  him  to  accompany  Cardinal  Bonelli  on  an 
embassy  to  Spain  and  Portugal.  He  was  just  then 
recovering  from  a  serious  illness,  and  felt  quite  sure 
that  the  journey  would  result  in  his  death,  but  he 
accepted  the  call.  In  Spain  he  was  received  with  the 
wildest  enthusiasn.  Indeed  the  papal  legate  was  almost 
forgotten  in  the  public  ovations.  Portugal  also  lavished 
honors  on  him,  and  when  in  consequence  of  new  orders 
from  the  Pope  the  embassy  continued  on  to  France  to 
plead  with  Charles  IX  and  Catherine  de'  Medici,  he 
was  received  in  the  same  manner  in  that  country.  On 
February  25  he  left  Blois  but  by  the  time  Lyons  was 
reached  he.  had  been  stricken  with  congestion  of  the 
lungs.  From  Lyons,  the  route  led  across  the  snow-clad 
Mt.  Cenis  and  continued  by  the  way  of  Turin  to 
Alexandria,  where  they  arrived  on  April  19. 

As  the  invalid  was  in  too  perilous  a  state  to  permit 
of  his  going  any  further  for  the  moment,  his  relative, 
the  Duke  of  Ferrara,  kept  him  through  the  summer 
until  September  3,  when  another  start  was  made  for 
Rome,  where  he  wanted  to  die.  The  last  stage  of  his 
journey  inflicted  untold  suffering  on  him,  but  he  never 
complained.  On  September  28,  he  arrived  at  the 
professed  house  in  Rome,  and  throngs  of  cardinals  and 


110  The  Jesuits 

prelates  hurried  to  see  him  to  get  his  blessing,  for  he 
was  already  canonized  in  the  popular  mind.  For  two 
days  he  lingered,  retaining  full  consciousness,  conversing 
at  times  with  those  around  him,  but  most  of  the  time 
absorbed  in  prayer.  When  asked  to  name  his  vicar  he 
laughed  and  said:  "  I  have  enough  to  do  to  give  an 
account  of  my  own  stewardship."  Towards  evening 
he  became  speechless  and  about  midnight  peacefully 
expired,  ending  a  career  which  it  would  be  hard  to 
equal  in  romance  —  a  gorgeous  grandee  of  Spain,  a 
duke,  a  viceroy,  the  affectionate  friend  of  the  greatest 
potentate  on  earth,  and  now  dying  in  the  poor  room 
of  a  Jesuit  priest,  atoning  by  his  splendid  sanctity  for 
the  offenses  which  have  made  the  name  of  the  family 
to  which  he  belonged  a  synonym  of  every  kind  of 
iniquity. 

Following  close  upon  St.  Francis  Borgia  came  a 
number  of  men  who  have  reflected  glory  upon  the 
Church  and  on  the  Society,  some  of  them,  the  most 
illustrious  theologians  of  modern  times,  and  others 
acting  as  the  diplomatic  agents  of  the  great  nations 
of  Europe  in  the  tentative  but  usually  unsuccessful 
efforts  to  reunite  Christendom.  We  refer  to  Bellarmine, 
Toletus,  Suarez,  Petavius,  Possevin  and  Vieira. 

Speaking  of  Bellarmine,  Andrew  White,  in  his 
"  Conflict  of  Science  and  Religion  "  informs  us  that 
"  there  must  have  been  a  strain  of  Scotch  in  Bellarmine, 
because  of  his  name,  Robert," — a  typical  illustration 
of  the  unreliability  of  Andrew  White  as  a  witness.  The 
first  Robert  who  appears  in  Scottish  history  is  the  son 
of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  consequently  a  Norman. 
Even  the  name  of  Robert  Bruce  frequently  occurs  as 
Robert  de  Bruce,  just  as  there  is  a  John  de  Baliol; 
Robert  de  Pynkeny,  etc.  There  is  also  a  Robert  of 
Arbrissel,  associated  with  Urban  II  in  preaching  the 
Crusades;  Robert  of  Geneva,  an  antipope;  Robert  de 


Conspicuous  Personages         111 

Luzarches,  who  had  to  do  with  the  building  of  Notre- 
Dame  in  Paris,  and  scores  of  others  might  be  cited. 

Roberto  Bellarmine  was  born  at  Montepulciano,  in 
1542.  He  was  a  nephew  of  Pope  Marcellus  II,  and 
after  entering  the  Society  was  immediately  admitted 
to  his  vows.  He  studied  philosophy  for  three  years 
at  the  Roman  College  and  was  then  assigned  to  teach 
humanities.  In  1567  he  began  his  theology  at  Padua, 
but  towards  the  end  of  his  course,  he  went  to  Louvain 
to  study  the  prevailing  heresies  of  the  day  at  close 
range.  While  there,  his  reputation  as  a  preacher  was 
such  that  Protestants  came  from  England  and  Germany 
to  hear  him.  In  1576  he  was  recalled  to  Rome  to  fill 
the  recently  established  chair  of  controversy,  and  the 
lectures  which  he  gave  at  that  time  form  the  ground- 
work for  his  remarkable  work  "  De  controversiis."  It 
was  found  to  be  so  comprehensive,  conclusive  and 
convincing  in  its  character  that  special  chairs  were 
established  in  Protestant  countries  to  refute  it.  It  still 
remains  a  classic.  Singularly  enough,  though  Sixtus  V 
had  permitted  the  work  to  be  dedicated  to  him,  he 
determined  later  to  put  it  on  the  Index,  because  it  gave 
only  an  indirect  power  to  the  Holy  See  in  temporal 
matters.  But  he  died  before  carrying  out  his  threat, 
and  his  successor,  Gregory  XIII,  gave  a  special  approba- 
tion to  the  book  and  appointed  its  author  a  member, 
of  the  commission  to  revise  the  Vulgate,  which  Sixtus 
had  inaugurated,  but  into  which  certain  faults  had 
crept.  At  Bellarmine's  suggestion  the  revision  was 
called  the  "  Sixtine  edition  "  to  save  the  reputation 
of  the  deceased  Pontiff. 

He  was  rector  of  the  Roman  College  in  1592,  and  in 
1595  provincial  of  Naples.  In  1597'  he  was  made 
theologian  of  Pope  Clement  VIII,  examiner  of  bishops, 
consultor  of  the  Holy  Office,  cardinal  in  1599,  and 
assessor  of  the  Congregation  "  de  Auxiliis,"  which  had 


112  The  Jesuits 

been  instituted  to  settle  the  dispute  between  the 
Thomists  and  Molinists  on  the  question  of  the  concilia- 
tion of  the  operation  of  Divine  grace  with  man's  free 
will.  Bellarmine  wanted  the  decision  withheld,  but 
the  Pope  differed  from  him,  though  afterwards  he 
adopted  the  suggestion.  He  had,  meantime,  been 
consecrated  Archbishop  of  Capua,  by  the  Pope,  and 
was  twice  in  danger  of  being  raised  to  the  papacy.  He 
remained  only  three  years  at  Capua,  and  passed  the 
rest  of  his  life  in  Rome  as  chief  theological  adviser 
of  the  Holy  See.  During  this  period  occurred  the 
dispute  between  Venice  and  the  Holy  See  in  which 
Bellarmine  and  Baronius  opposed  the  pretensions  of 
Paolo  Sarpi  and  Marsiglio,  the  champions  of  the 
Republic.  The  English  oath  of  allegiance  also  came 
up  for  consideration  at  that  time.  In  this  controversy 
Bellarmine  found  himself  in  conflict  with  James  I 
of  England.  He  was  conspicuous  also  in  the  Galileo 
matter.  His  life  was  so  remarkable  for  its  holiness  that 
the  cause  of  his  beatification  was  several  times  intro- 
duced, but  was  not  then  acted  on,  because  his  name 
was  connected  with  the  doctrine  of  papal  authority, 
which  was  extremely  obnoxious  to  the  French  regalis  poli- 
ticians. It  has,  however,  been  recently  re-introduced. 
When  Baius,  the  theological  dean  of  Louvain,  first 
broached  his  errors  on  grace,  he  was  answered  by 
Bellarmine;  and  in  1579  when  he  again  defended  them, 
he  was  taken  in  hand  by  Toletus,  who,  after  refuting 
him,  induced  him  to  acknowledge  his  heresy  before  the 
united  faculties  of  the  university.  Unlike  Bellarmine, 
who  was  of  noble  blood  and  the  nephew  of  a  Pope, 
Toletus  came  of  very  humble  people  in  Spain.  Rosa 
says  he  was  one  of  the  "  new  Christians,"  that  is,  of 
Jewish  or  Moorish  blood.  He  was  born  at  Cordova 
in  1532  and  was,  consequently,  ten  years  older  than  his 
friend  and  fellow- Jesuit,  Bellarmine.  He  made  his 


Conspicuous  Personages         113 

studies  at  Salamanca,  where  his  master,  the  famous 
Soto,  described  him  as  an  intellectual  prodigy;  he 
must  have  been  such,  for  he  occupied  a  chair  of 
philosophy  when  he  was  fifteen.  He  entered  the 
Society  in  1558,  and  was  sent  to  Rome  as  professor 
of  theology.  He  was  appointed  theologian  and  preacher 
of  Pius  V,  Gregory  XIII,  Sixtus  V  and  Urban  VIII, 
successively.  He  accompanied  Cardinal  Commendone 
in  his  diplomatic  visit  to  Germany,  to  form  a  league 
against  the  Turks,  just  as  Bellarmine  had  been  deputed 
to  go  with  Gaetano  to  France  during  the  Huguenot 
troubles.  He  was  made  a  cardinal  in  1593,  and  in 
1595  he  induced  Pope  Clement  to  grant  Henry  IV 
the  absolution  that  brought  peace  to  France.  He 
warned  the  Pontiff  that  a  refusal  in  that  case  would 
be  a  grevious  sin.  Shortly  afterwards  he  was  named 
legate  to  that  country,  but,  as  he  had  offended  his 
fellow-countrymen  by  showing  himself  hostile  to 
Philip  II  in  the  matter  of  the  succession  of  Henry  IV, 
it  was  considered  advisable  to  send  someone  else  in  his 
stead.  He  died  in  the  following  year,  and  that  gave 
occasion  to  the  now  discredited  historian,  d'Etoile,  to 
say  that  the  Spaniards  had  poisoned  him. 

The  writings  of  Toletus  are  very  numerous.  Bossuet 
was  a  great  admirer  of  his  "  Instructions  to  Priests," 
in  which,  as  in  his  "  Commentaries,"  his  enemies 
discovered  the  "  lax  "  principles  of  probabilism,  ultra- 
montanism,  and  the  like,  and  he  has  been  accused  of 
teaching  even  perjury,  simony  and  regicide.  He  was 
the  preacher  and  theologian  of  four  of  the  Popes,  the 
counsellor  of  princes,  and  the  great  defender  of  the 
Faith  in  the  northern  countries.  Cabassut,  one  of  the 
most  learned  of  the  French  Oratorians  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV,  declared  that  we  should  have  to  wait  for 
several  centuries  before  a  man  would  appear  who  would 
equal  Cardinal  Toletus.  Tanner  says  that  his  life 
8 


114  The  Jesuits 

could  not  have  been  more  useful  or  better  employed 
for  Jesus  Christ  if  he  travelled  over  the  whole  earth 
preaching  the  Gospel.  Gregory  XIII  indignantly 
denounced  what  he  called  the  lies  of  those  who  assailed 
his  character.  "  We  set  against  those  calumnies  our 
own  testimony,"  he  wrote,  "  and  we  affirm  in  all 
truthfulness  that  he  is  incontestably  the  most  learned 
man  living  to-day;  we  have  a  greater  opinion  still  of 
his  integrity  and  his  irreproachable  life.  We  have  ha'd 
personal  proofs  of  both.  We  know  him  perfectly  and 
we  testify  to  what  we  know.  We  beg  of  your  Highness 
to  give  full  and  entire  faith  to  the  truth  and  to  the 
sincerity  of  our  testimony,  and  to  regard  this  man 
henceforward  as  a  true  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
marvellously  useful  to  the  whole  Christian  world." 
These  words  were  uttered  before  Toletus  was  clothed 
with  the  purple.  He  will  appear  again  at  the  election 
of  Aquaviva. 

Very  angry  at  the  punishment  he  had  received  at 
the  hands  of  Bellarmine  and  Toletus,  Baius  turned  on 
Lessius,  who  was  then  teaching  in  the  Jesuit  Col- 
lege at  Lou  vain,  where,  acting  on  misinformation, 
the  university  condemned  thirty-four  propositions 
which  Baius  ascribed  to  him.  Lessius  declared  that 
they  were  not  his,  but  the  university  refused  to  accept 
his  word.  Baius,  therefore,  continued  his  denunciation 
of  Lessius  in  particular  and  of  the  Jesuits  in  general 
as  Lutherans  and  heretics.  Whereupon,  not  only  the 
other  universities  but  the  whole  country  took  up  the 
quarrel.  When  the  question  was  ultimately  referred 
to  the  Pope,  he  replied  that  he  himself  had  taught  the 
same  doctrine  as  Lessius.  Besides  being  one  of  the 
very  great  theologians  of  the  Society,  Lessius  was  re- 
markable for  the  holiness  of  his  life.  Pope  Urban  VIII, 
who  made  such  stringent  laws  about  canonization,  and 
who  knew  Lessius  personally,  paid  a  special  tribute  to 


Conspicuous  Personages          115 

his  sanctity.  He  is  now  like  Bellarmine  ranked  among 
the  venerable,  and  the  process  of  his  beatification  is 
proceeding. 

Another  great  Jesuit  theologian  of  this  period  was 
the  Spaniard,  Juan  Maldonado,  who  was  born  in  1533 
at  Casas  de  Reina,  about  sixty-six  leagues  from  Madrid. 
He  went  to  the  University  of  Salmanca,  where  he 
studied  Latin  under  two  blind  professors.  He  took 
up  Greek  with  El  Pinciano,  philosophy  with  Toletus, 
and  theology  with  Soto.  He  was  endowed  with  a 
prodigious  memory  and  never  forgot  anything  he  had 
ever  learned.  His  aspirations  were  at  first  for  law, 
but  he  turned  to  theology;  and  after  obtaining  the 
doctorate,  taught  theology,  philosophy  and  Greek  at 
the  university.  He  entered  the  Society  in  1562,  and 
was  ordained  priest  in  the  following  year.  He  lectured 
on  Aristotle  in  the  new  College  of  Clermont  in  1564, 
and  then  taught  theology  for  the  four  following  years; 
after  an  interruption  of  a  year,  he  continued  his  courses 
until  1576.  His  lectures  attracted  such  crowds  that 
at  times  the  college  courtyard  was  substituted  for  the 
hall.  He  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  commission 
for  revising  the  Septuagint;  his  knowledge  of  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  Syriac,  Chaldaic  and  Arabic  and  his 
comprehensive  knowledge  of  history,  of  the  early 
Fathers  and  of  all  the  heresies,  gave  him  the  first  rank 
among  the  Scriptural  exegetes  of  his  time.  In  Cornely's 
opinion,  his  "  Commentaries  on  the  Gospels  "  are  the 
best  ever  published.  Above  all,  he  was  a  man  of 
eminent  sanctity,  endowed  with  an  extraordinary 
instinct  for  orthodoxy,  and  an  unflinching  courage  in 
fighting  for  the  Church  as  long  as  he  had  life.  "  His 
constant  desire,"  says  Prat,  "was  to  make  everything 
the  Society  undertook,  bear  the  mark  of  the  greatness 
and  sanctity  which  St.  Ignatius  had  stamped  on  the 
Institute." 


116  The  Jesuits 

There  was  also  the  great  Suarez,  who  was  born  at 
Granada  in  1548, -and  became  a  Jesuit  in  1564.  Pope 
Paul  V  appointed  him  to  answer  King  James  of  England 
and  wanted  to  retain  him  in  the  Holy  City,  but  Philip 
II  claimed  him  for  Coimbra  to  give  prestige  to  the 
university.  When  he  visited  Barcelona  the  doctors  of 
the  university  went  out  to  meet  him  processionally  to 
pay  him  honor.  Bossuet  declared  that  his  writings 
contained  the  whole  of  Scholastic  theology.  In 
Scholasticism  he  founded  a  school  of  his  own,  and 
modified  Molinism  by  his  system  of  Congruism.  His 
book,  "De  defensione  fidei,"  was  burned  in  London 
by  royal  command,  and  was  prohibited  as  containing 
doctrines  against  the  power  of  sovereigns.  One  edition 
of  his  works  consisted  of  twenty-three  and  another  of 
twenty-eight  volumes  in  folio.  De  Scoraille  has 
written  an  admirable  biography  of  this  great  man. 

Cardinal  de  Lugo  also  should  be  included  in  this 
catalogue;  indeed  he  is  one  of  the  most  eminent 
theologians  of  modern  times.  His  precocity  as  a 
child  was  almost  preternatural,  he  was  reading  books 
when  he  was  three  years  old  and  was  tonsured  at 
ten;  at  fourteen,  he  defended  a  public  thesis  in  philos- 
ophy, and  about  the  same  time  he  was  appointed  to 
an  ecclesiastical  benefice  by  Philip  II.  He  studied  law 
at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  but  soon  followed  his 
brother  into  the  Society.  After  teaching  philosophy 
at  Medina  del  Campo  and  theology  at  Valladolid,  he 
was  summoned  to  Rome  to  be  professor  of  theology. 
His  lectures  were  circulated  all  over  Europe  before  they 
were  printed,  and  only  when  ordered  by  superiors  did 
he  put  them  in  book  form.  Between  1633  and  1640 
he  published  four  volumes  which  cover  the  whole  field 
of  dogmatic  theology.  Their  characteristic  is  that  there 
is  little,  if  any,  repetition  of  what  other  writers  had 
already  said.  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori  rated  him  as  only 


Conspicuous  Personages          117 

just  below  St.  Thomas  Aquinas;  and  Benedict  XIV 
styles  him  "  a  light  of  the  Church."  He  was  made 
a  cardinal  in  1643. 

The  distinguished  Father  Lehmkuhl  appropriates 
four  long  columns  in  "  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia  "  to 
express  his  admiration  for  Gregory  de  Valencia  who  was 
born  in  1541  and  died  in  1603.  He  came  from  Medina 
in  Spain  and  was  studying  philosophy  and  jurisprudence 
in  Salamanca,  when  attracted  by  the  preaching  of 
Father  Ramirez,  he  entered  the  novitiate  and  had  the 
privilege  of  being  trained  by  Baltasar  Alvarez,  who 
was  one  of  the  spiritual  directors  of  St.  Teresa.  St. 
Francis  Borgia  called  him  to  Rome,  where  he  taught 
philosophy  with  such  distinction  that  all  North 
Germany  and  Poland  petitioned  for  his  appointment 
to  their  universities.  He  was  assigned  to  Dillingen, 
and  two  years  afterwards  to  Ingolstadt,  where  he 
taught  for  twenty-four  years.  His  "  Commentary  " 
in  four  volumes  on  the  "  Summa  theologica "  of 
St.  Thomas  is  one  of  the  first  comprehensive  theological 
works  of  the  Society.  He  contributed  about  eight 
polemical  treatises  to  the  war  on  Lutheranism,  which 
was  then  at  white  heat ;  but  he  was  not  at  one  with  his 
friend  von  Spec  in  the  matter  of  witchcraft.  Von 
Spee  wanted  both  courts  and  trials  abolished;  Gregory 
thought  their  severity  might  be  tempered.  He  had 
much  to  do  with  the  change  of  view  in  moral  theology 
on  the  subject  of  usury;  and  the  two  last  volumes  of 
his  great  work,  the  "  Analysis  fidei  catholicas  "  cul- 
minates in  a  proof  of  papal  infallibility  which  expresses 
almost  literally  the  definition  of  the  Vatican  Council. 

In  1589  he  was  summoned  to  Rome  to  take  part  in 
the  great  theological  battle  on  grace.  The  task 
assigned  to  him  was  to  prove  the  orthodoxy  of  Molina, 
which  he  did  so  effectively  and  with  such  consummate 
skill  that  both  friend  and  foe  awarded  him  the  palm. 


118  The  Jesuits 

But  the  battle  was  not  over,  for  it  was  charged  that 
isolated  statements  taken  from  Molina's  book  con- 
tradicted St.  Augustine.  Consequently  all  of  St. 
Augustine's  works  had  to  be  examined ;  a  scrutiny  which 
of  course  called  for  endless  and  crushing  labor,  but  he 
set  himself  to  the  task  so  energetically  that  when  the 
debates  were  resumed  his  health  was  shattered,  and 
he  was  allowed  to  remain  seated  during  the  discussions. 
Thomas  de  Lemos  was  his  antagonist  at  this  stage. 
In  the  ninth  session,  Gregory's  strength  gave  way  and 
he  fainted  in  his  chair.  His  enemies  said  it  was  because 
the  Pope  had  reproached  him  with  tampering  with 
St.  Augustine's  text,  but  as  his  holiness  had  decorated 
him  with  the  title  of  "  Doctor  doctorum,"  the  accusa- 
tion must  be  put  in  the  same  category  as  the  other 
which  charged  the  Jesuits  with  poisoning  Clement  VIII 
so  as  to  prevent  him  from  condemning  their  doctrine. 
According  to  the  "  Biographic  universelle,"  Denis 
P6tau,  or  Petavius,  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
savants  of  his  time.  He  was  born  at  Orleans,  August 
21,  1583,  and  there  made  his  early  studies.  Later 
he  went  to  Paris,  and  at  the  end  of  his  philosophical 
course  defended  his  thesis  in  Greek.  He  took  no 
recreation,  but  haunted  the  Royal  Library,  and  amused 
himself  collecting  ancient  manuscripts.  It  was  while 
making  these  researches,  that  he  met  the  famous 
Casaubon,  who  urged  him  to  prepare  an  edition  of  the 
works  of  Synesius.  While  engaged  at  this  work,  he 
was  chosen  for  the  chair  of  philosophy  at  Bourges, 
though  he  was  then  only  nineteen  years  old.  As  soon 
as  he  was  ordained  to  the  priesthood,  he  was  made 
canon  of  the  cathedral  of  his  native  city.  There  he 
met  Father  Fronton  du  Due  and  entered  the  Society. 
After  his  novitiate,  he  was  sent  to  the  University  of 
Pont-a-Mousson  for  a  course  of  theology.  He  then 
taught  rhetoric  at  La  Fleche,  and  from  there  went  to 


Conspicuous  Personages         119 

Paris.  His  health  gave  way  at  this  time,  and  he 
occupied  himself  in  preparing  some  of  the  works  which 
Casaubon  had  formerly  advised  him  to  publish. 
In  1621,  he  succeeded  Fronton  du  Due  as  professor 
of  positive  theology,  and  continued  at  the  post  for 
twenty-two  years  with  ever  increasing  distinction. 

Petau's  leisure  moments  were  given  to  deciphering 
old  manuscripts  and  studying  history.  Every  year 
saw  some  new  book  from  his  hands;  meanwhile,  his 
vast  correspondence  and  his  replies  to  his  critics  in- 
volved an  immense  amount  of  other  labor.  Though 
naturally  of  a  mild  disposition,  his  controversies 
unfortunately  assumed  the  harsh  and  vituperative 
tone  of  the  period.  It  was  the  accepted  method. 
His  great  work  on  chronology  appeared  in  1627  and 
won  universal  applause ;  Philip  IV  of  Spain  offered  him 
the  chair  of  history  in  Madrid,  but  he  refused  it  on 
the  score  of  health.  In  1637  he  dedicated  to  Pope 
Urban  VIII  a  "  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalms  in  Greek 
verse, ' '  for  which  he  was  invited  to  Rome,  but  he  escaped 
the  honor  on  the  plea  of  age.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
was  so  frightened  at  the  prospect  of  being  made  a  card- 
inal that  he  fell  dangerously  ill,  and  recovered  only  when 
assured  that  his  name  was  removed  from  the  list. 
He  stopped  teaching  in  1644,  only  eight  years  before 
his  death.  The  complete  list  of  his  books  fills  twenty- 
five  columns  in  Sommervogers  catalogue  of  Jesuit 
publications.  They  are  concerned  with  chronology, 
history,  polemics,  and  the  history  of  dogma.  His 
"  Dogmata  theologica  "  is  incomplete,  not  having  been 
carried  beyond  the  fifth  volume. 

In  those  days  there  was  an  extraordinary  amount  of 
exaggerated  confidence  entertained  by  many  of  the 
dignitaries  of  the  Church  that  the  Jesuits  had  an 
especial  aptitude  for  adjusting  the  politico-religious 
difficulties  which  were  disturbing  the  peace  of  Europe. 


120  The  Jesuits 

Thus,  we  find  Father  Warsewicz  sent  to  Sweden  in 
1574  to  strengthen  the  resolution  of  the  king  of  that 
country,  who,  under  the  influence  of  his  Catholic 
queen,  was  desirous  of  restoring  the  nation  to  the 
Faith.  Warsewicz  appeared  in  the  court  of  King  John, 
not  as  representing  the  Pope,  but  as  the  ambassador 
of  the  King  of  Poland,  who  was  related  to  Queen 
Catherine.  It  was  she  who  had  suggested  this  means 
of  approaching  the  king.  Accordingly,  private  meet- 
ings were  held  with  the  monarch  during  an  entire  week, 
for  five  and  six  hours  consecutively,  for  John  prided 
himself  on  his  theological  erudition.  He  agreed  to 
re-establish  Catholicity  in  his  realm,  provided  the 
chalice  was  granted  to  the  laity  and  that  marriage 
of  the  clergy  and  the  substitution  of  Swedish  for 
Latin  in  the  liturgy  were  permitted  He  had  no 
difficulty  about  the  doctrinal  teaching  of  the  Church. 
The  king's  conditions  were,  of  course,  unacceptable, 
and  in  1576  Father  Nicolai  was  sent  to  see  if  he  could 
induce  him  to  modify  his  demand.  According  to  the 
"  Realencyclopadie  fur  protestantische  Theologie  und 
Kirche "  and  Bohmer-Monod,  Nicolai  represented 
himself  as  a  Lutheran  minister,  and  taught  in  Protestant 
seminaries.  The  "  Realencyclopadie "  adds,  "he 
almost  succeeded  in  smuggling  in  what  was  virtually 
a  Romish  liturgy."  But  in  the  first  place,  this 
"  liturgy  "  was  not  "  smuggled  in  "  by  the  Jesuit  or 
anyone  else.  It  was  imposed  by  the  king,  and  was 
in  use  until  his  death  which  occurred  seventeen  years 
later,  (The  Catholic  Encyclopedia).  Secondly, 
Nicolai  could  not  have  been  posing  as  a  minister,  for 
he  let  it  be  known  that  he  had  studied  in  Louvain, 
Cologne,  and  Douay,  which  were  Catholic  seminaries. 
It  is  true  that  he  did  not  declare  he  was  a  Jesuit ;  but 
it  is  surely  possible  to  be  a  Catholic  without  being  a 
Jesuit.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  the  school  was 


Conspicuous  Personages          121 

a  sort  of  union  seminary,  which  was  striving  to  arrive 
at  conciliation,  for,  according  to  the  king,  what  kept  the 
two  sections  apart  was  merely  a  matter  of  ecclesiastical 
usage.  Finally,  the  Confession  of  Augsburg  was  not 
admitted  in  Sweden  as  the  religion  of  the  State  until 
1593.  Had  Nicolai  advocated  Luther's  doctrines  either 
in  the  pulpit  or  the  professor's  chair,  he  would  have 
been  instantaneously  expelled  from  the  Society. 

The  next  Jesuit  who  appeared  in  Sweden  was 
Anthony  Possevin,  an  Italian  of  Mantua,  who  was 
born  either  in  1533  or  1534.  He  began  his  carreer  as 
the  secretary  of  Cardinal  Ercole  Gonzaga,  and  became 
a  Jesuit  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.  He  accomplished 
much  in  France  as  a  preacher  and  founder  of  colleges; 
and  in  1573  was  made  secretary  of  the  Society  under 
Mercurian.  In  1577  he  was  sent  as  a  special  legate 
of  the  Pope  to  John  III  of  Sweden,  and  also  to  the 
Courts  of  Bohemia  and  Bavaria  to  secure  their  support 
for  John  in  the  event  of  certain  political  complications. 
These  political  features  of  the  mission  made  it  very 
objectionable  to  the  Jesuits  because  of  their  possible 
reaction  on  the  whole  Society.  But  as  the  order  came 
from  the  Pope,  and  as  the  conversion  of  the  king  and 
of  all  Sweden  was  the  predominating  idea  of  the 
mission,  the  attempt  was  made  in  spite  of  its  possible 
consequence. 

Like  his  predecessor,  he  did  not  appear  in  his  clerical 
garb,  nor  even  as  the  legate  of  the  Pope.  That  would 
scarcely  be  tolerated  in  a  Protestant  country  like 
Sweden,  but  he  came  as  the  ambassador  extraordinary 
of  the  Empress  of  Germany,  the  widow  of  Maximilian 
II.  With  him  were  two  other  Jesuits  —  Good,  an 
Englishman,  and  Fournier,  a  Frenchman.  Cretineau- 
Joly  makes  Good  an  Irishman,  but  the  English 
"  Menology  "  for  July  5  says  he  was  born  at  Glaston- 
bury  in  Somersetshire,  and  was  one  of  the  first  English- 


122  The  Jesuits 

men  admitted  to  the  Society.  After  his  noviceship 
he  was  sent  to  Ireland,  where  he  labored  for  four 
years  under  the  Archbishop  of  Armagh.  He  then 
accompanied  Possevin  to  Sweden  and  Poland,  and  after 
passing  four  years  in  the  latter  country,  died  at  Naples 
in  1586. 

When  Possevin  had  finished  discussing  the  political 
situation  with  the  king,  he  began  his  work  as  ambas- 
sador of  the  Lord.  He  had  many  private  interviews 
with  his  majesty,  and  convinced  him  of  his  errors  in 
matters  of  faith;  but  the  king  insisted  on  points  of 
discipline  and  liturgy  which  could  not  be  granted.  In 
brief,  he  was  a  Catholic,  but  reasons  of  State  prevented 
him  from  making  any  public  declaration.  However, 
on  May  16,  1578,  he  decided  to  take  the  step,  and  an 
altar  was  erected  in  a  room  of  his  palace.  There  he 
assisted  at  Mass,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  queen,  the 
Governor  of  Stockholm  and  his  secretary,  declared 
himself  a  Catholic.  But  he  still  hesitated  about  making 
it  known  to  his  people,  and  begged  Possevin  to  return 
to  Rome  to  see  if  he  could  not  obtain  the  dispensation 
already  asked  for, —  such  as  Communion  under  both 
kinds,  Mass  in  Swedish,  the  marriage  of  priests,  which 
Possevin  knew  would  never  be  granted.  However,  he 
set  out  for  Rome  with  seven  young  converts,  and  sent 
two  Jesuits  to  Stockholm  as  preachers.  He  also  got 
others  ready  in  Austria,  Poland,  and  Moravia,  and 
made  arrangements  with  the  Emperor  Rudolph  to  give 
his  daughter  in  marriage  to  King  John's  son,  Sigismund. 
He  finally  reached  Rome,  but  the  congregation  of 
Cardinals,  of  course,  rejected  the  king's  pusillanimous 
petition. 

In  spite  of  this  failure,  Possevin  was  then  sent  as 
legate  to  Russia,  Lithuania,  Moravia,  Hungary,  and, 
in  general,  to  all  the  countries  of  the  North;  while 
Philip  II  of  Spain  entrusted  hini  with  a  confidential 


Conspicuous  Personages         123 

mission  to  the  King  of  Sweden.  In  Bavaria,  he  has  to 
see  the  duke;  at  Augsburg,  he  makes  arrangements 
for  the  Pope  with  the  famous  banking  firm  of  Fugger, 
the  Rothschilds  of  those  days,  who  had  figured  so 
conspicuously  in  the  question  of  Indulgences  in  Luther's 
time.  From  there  he  proceeded  to  Prague  to  deliver 
a  message  to  the  Emperor;  and  at  Vilna  he  conferred 
with  Bathori,  the  King  of  Poland.  A  Swedish  frigate 
waited  for  him  at  Dantzig  and,  after  a  fourteen  days' 
voyage,  he  landed  at  Stockholm  on  July  26,  1579.  He 
was  no  longer  dressed  as  a  layman,  but  went  to  the 
court  in  his  Jesuit  cassock  and  was  received  with  great 
ceremony  by  the  dignitaries  of  the  realm. 

Meantime,  however,  the  king's  brother  and  sister- 
in-law  had  aroused  the  Lutherans ;  the  Swedish  bishops 
were  banded  against  him,  and  finally,  when  the  king 
learned  that  none  of  his  demands  had  been  granted, 
except  that  of  keeping  the  confiscated  ecclesiastical 
property,  he  lost  courage  and  reverted  to  Protestantism. 
The  assurance  given  him  by  Possevin  that  he  could 
rely  on  the  help  of  Spain,  of  the  Emperor,  and  of  the 
Catholic  princes  of  Germany  did  not  move  him.  He 
saw  before  him  the  revolt  of  his  subjects,  and  the 
accession  of  his  brother;  and,  while  insisting  that  he 
was  a  Catholic  at  heart,  he  refused  to  act,  unless  the 
Pope  granted  all  his  demands.  On  February  19  he 
convoked  a  Diet  at  Wadstena,  at  which  Possevin  was 
present,  but  as  the  majority  was  clearly  against  return- 
ing to  the  old  Faith,  the4egate  had  to  be  satisfied  with 
being  merely  an  onlooker,  while  the  king,  convinced 
that  he  was  acting  against  his  conscience,  yielded  to 
the  popular  clamor.  Another  Diet  was  held  with  the 
same  result.  Meantime,  the  legate  remained  in  Stock- 
holm, devoting  himself  to  the  sick  and  dying,  in  a 
pestilence  that  was  then  devastating  the  city.  He  also 
succeeded  in  so  strengthening  the  faith  of  the  young 


124  The  Jesuits 

Sigismund,  the  heir  apparant,  that  when  there  was 
question  subsequently  of  his  renouncing  Catholicity  in 
order  to  ascend  the  throne,  he  had  the  courage  to  say 
that  he  would  relinquish  all  his  rights  and  withdraw 
into  private  life,  rather  than  abandon  the  Faith. 

A  much  more  curious  exercise  of  diplomacy  came  in 
Possevin's  way  in  the  quarrel  between  the  King  of 
Poland  and  the  ruler  of  Muscovy.  The  latter  had 
made  vast  conquests  in  the  East,  and  then  turned  his 
attention  to  Livonia,  which  was  Polish  territory. 
Bathori,  who  was  ruler  of  Poland,  met  and  conquered 
the  invader  in  a  series  of  successful  battles.  Whereupon 
the  Czar,  knowing  Bathori's  devotion  to  the  Holy  See, 
asked  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  Gregory  XIII,  to  intervene. 
Posse vin  was  again  called  upon,  and  set  out  as  plenipo- 
tentiary to  arrange  peace  between  the  two  nations. 
Incidentally,  the  intention  of  the  Pope  was  to  obtain 
the  toleration  of  Catholics  in  the  Russian  dominions, 
to  secure  a  safe  passage  for  missionaries  to  China 
through  Russia,  to  induce  the  Czar  to  unite  with  the 
Christian  princes  against  the  Turks,  and  even  to  bring 
about  a  union  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches. 

Possevin  arrived  at  Vilna  in  1581.  He  found  Bathori 
elated  by  his  victories,  but  in  no  humor  to  entertain 
proposals  of  peace,  which  he  wisely  judged  to  be  merely 
a  device  of  his  opponent  to  gain  time.  However,  he 
yielded  to  persuasion,  and  Possevin  set  out  to  find  the 
Russian  sovereign  at  Staritza.  He  was  received  with 
all  the  honors  due  to  an  ambassador,  and  succeeded 
in  gaining  a  suspension  of  hostilities,  the  surrender  of 
Livonia  to  Poland,  as  well  as  the  agreement  to  the 
demands  of  the  Pope  for  religious  toleration,  and  the 
passage  across  Russia  to  China  for  Catholic  missionaries. 
Even  the  proposal  to  join  the  crusade  against  the 
Turks  was  accepted,  in  the  hope  that  it  would  put 
Constantinople  in  the  hands  of  Russia.  But  when  the 


Conspicuous  Personages         125 

question  of  the  union  of  Churches  was  mooted,  which, 
of  course,  implied  the  recognition  of  the  Pope  as 
Supreme  Pastor,  the  savage  awoke  in  the  Czar,  and, 
for  a  moment,  it  seemed  as  if  the  life  of  the  ambassador 
was  at  stake.  The  treaty  of  peace  was  finally  signed 
on  January  15,  1582,  the  delegates  meeting  in  the 
chapel,  where  the  ambassador  celebrated  Mass;  all  the 
representatives  of  Poland  and  Russia  kissing  the  cross 
as  a  declaration  of  their  fidelity  to  their  oath.  Possevin 
and  his  associates  then  started  for  Rome  towards  the 
end  of  April.  They  were  loaded  with  presents  from 
the  Czar;  but  to  the  amazement  of  the  barbarians, 
they  distributed  them  among  the  poor  of  the  city. 

There  was,  however,  an  appendix  to  this  mission. 
Though  the  Polish  king  did  all  in  his  power  to  preserve 
the  Faith  in  Livonia,  the  German  Lutherans,  Calvinists, 
Baptists,  and  other  heretics  had  already  invaded  the 
country,  and  were  inflaming  the  population  with  hatred 
of  the  Pope  and  the  Church.  Added  to  this  was  the 
alarm  awakened  in  the  mind  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
at  the  growing  power  of  the  Poles.  Again  Possevin 
had  to  return  to  the  scenes  of  his  labors,  but  this  time 
it  was  more  as  a  priest  than  a  diplomat.  Indeed, 
much  of  his  energy  was  expended  in  proving  that  he 
was  neither  German  nor  Pole,  but  an  ambassador  of 
Christ  sent  to  build  up  the  Faith  of  both  nations 
against  heresy.  We  hear  of  him  once  more  in  the 
matter  of  the  reconciliation  of  Henry  IV  of  France  to 
the  Holy  See.  To  him  and  Toletus  was  due  the  credit 
of  inducing  the  Pope  to  absolve  the  king,  and  by  so 
doing,  save  France  from  schism.  When  this  was  done, 
Possevin  became  an  ordinary  Jesuit,  laboring  here  and 
there,  exclusively  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  It  is  a 
curious  story,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything 
like  it  in  the  chronicles  of  the  Church,  except,  perhaps 
the  career  of  the  famous  Portuguese  Jesuit,  Antonio 


126  The  Jesuits 

Vieira,  surnamed  by  his  fellow-countrymen,  "  the 
Great." 

Vieira  was  born  in  Lisbon,  on  February  5,  1608,  and 
died  at  Bahia,  in  Brazil,  on  July  18,  1697.  He  was 
virtually  a  Brazilian,  for  he  went  out  to  the  colony 
when  still  a  child,  and  after  finishing  his  studies  in  the 
Jesuit  college  there,  entered  the  Society  in  1623,  when 
he  was  only  fifteen  years  of  age.  At  eighteen,  he  was 
teaching  rhetoric  and  writing  commentaries  on  the 
Canticle  of  Canticles,  the  tragedies  of  Seneca,  and 
the  "  Metamorphoses  "  of  Ovid,  but  it  was  twelve 
years  before  he  was  raised  to  the  priesthood.  The 
eloquence  of  his  first  sermon  astounded  everyone. 

In  1640  Portugal  declared  its  independence  from 
Spain,  to  which  it  had  been  subject  for  sixty  years. 
As  the  union  had  been  effected  by  fraud  and  force,  and 
as  all  the  former  Portuguese  possessions  in  the  East 
and  a  part  of  Brazil  had  been  wrested  from  Spain  by 
the  Dutch  and  English;  and  as  the  taxes  imposed  on 
Portugal  were  excessively  onerous,  there  was  a  strong 
feeling  of  hatred  for  the  Spaniards.  This  hostility 
broke  out  finally  in  a  revolution,  and  John  IV  ascended 
the  throne  of  Portugal,  but  the  change  of  government 
involved  the  country  in  a  disastrous  war  of  twenty 
years'  duration. 

Before  the  outbreak,  the  Jesuits  were  solemnly 
warned  by  their  Superiors  to  observe  a  rigid  neutrality. 
But  in  the  excited  state  of  the  public  mind,  Father 
Freire  forgot  the  injunction,  and,  in  an  Advent  sermon 
in  the  year  1637,  let  words  escape  him  that  set  the 
country  ablaze.  Cretineau-Joly  says  "  the  provincial 
promptly  imprisoned  him,"  which  probably  meant 
that  he  was  kept  in  his  room,  for  there  are  no  prisons 
in  Jesuit  houses.  But  even  that  seclusion  produced  a 
popular  tumult.  The  provincial  was  besieged  by 
protests,  and  a  delegation  was  even  sent  to  Madrid  to 


Conspicuous  Personages          127 

protest  that  the  words  of  the  preacher  had  been  misin- 
terpreted. The  Spanish  king  accepted  the  explanation, 
and  when  the  envoys  returned  to  Lisbon,  Freire  had 
been  already  liberated. 

Ranke  asserts  in  his  "  History  of  the  Popes  "  that 
as  there  was  question  of  establishing  a  republic  in 
Portugal  at  that  time,  it  is  possible  that  Spain  preferred 
to  see  the  innocuous  John  of  Braganza,  whose  son  was 
a  dissolute  wretch,  made  king,  than  to  run  the  risk  of 
a  republic  like  those  projected  at  that  time  by  the 
Calvinists  in  France  and  by  the  Lutherans  in  Sweden. 
Later,  however,  an  investigation  was  ordered,  and  a 
Jesuit  named  Correa  was  incarcerated  for  having 
predicted  at  a  college  reception  given  to  John  of 
Braganza  some  years  earlier  that  he  would  one  day 
wear  the  crown.  Meantime  the  explosion  took  place, 
and  in  1640  John  of  Braganza  was  proclaimed  king 
of  an  independent  Portugal. 

In  the  following  year  Vieira  arrived  from  Brazil  and 
was  not  only  made  tutor  to  the  Infante,  Don  Pedro, 
as  well  as  court  preacher,  but  was  appointed  member 
of  the  royal  council.  In  the  last-named  office  he 
reorganized  the  departments  of  the  army  and  navy, 
gave  a  new  impetus  to  commerce,  urged  the  foundation 
of  a  national  bank,  and  the  organization  of  the  Brazilian 
Trading  Company,  readjusted  the  taxation,  curbed  the 
Portuguese  Inquisition,  and  was  mainly  instrumental 
in  gaining  the  national  victories  of  Elvas,  Almeixal, 
Castello  Rodrigo,  and  Montes  Claros. 

Between  1646  and  1650  he  went  on  diplomatic 
missions  to  Paris,  the  Hague,  London,  and  Rome,  but 
refused  the  title  of  ambassador  and  also  the  offer 
of  a  bishopric.  He  wanted  something  else,  namely, 
to  work  among  his  Indians,  and  he  returned  to  Brazil 
in  1652.  There  he  provoked  the  wrath  of  the  slave- 
owners by  his  denunciation  of  their  ill-treatment  of 


128  The  Jesuits 

the  negroes  and  Indians,  and  was  soon  back  in  Lisbon 
pleading  the  cause  of  the  victims.  He  won  his  case, 
and,  in  1655,  we  find  him  once  more  at  his  missionary 
labors  in  Brazil,  evangelizing  the  cannibals,  translating 
the  catechism  into  their  idioms,  travelling  over  steep 
mountain  ranges  and  paddling  hundreds  of  miles  on 
the  Amazon  and  its  numberless  tributaries.  Eleven 
times  he  visited  every  mission  post  on  the  Maranhon, 
which  meant  twenty  journeys  along  the  interminable 
South  American  rivers,  on  some  of  which  he  had  to 
keep  at  the  oar  for  a  month  at  a  time.  It  is  estimated 
that  he  made  15,000  leagues  on  foot,  and  advanced 
600  leagues  farther  into  the  interior  of  the  continent 
than  any  of  his  predecessors.  He  continued  this  work 
till  1 66 1,  and  then  the  slave-owners  rose  against  him 
with  greater  fury  than  ever,  and  sent  him  a  prisoner 
to  Lisbon.  He  was  no  longer  as  welcome  at  court  as 
previously,  for  the  degenerate  Alfonso,  who  had  to  be 
subsequently  deposed,  was  on  the  throne.  In  1665 
the  Inquisition  forbade  him  to  preach,  and  flung  him 
into  a  dungeon,  where  he  lay  till  1667,  when  he  was 
released  by  the  new  king  Pedro  II.  He  then  went  to 
Rome,  and  was  welcomed  by  the  Pope,  the  cardinals, 
and  the  General  of  the  Order,  Father  Oliva. 

While  at  Rome  he  met  Christina  of  Sweden,  who  had 
abdicated  her  throne  in  order  to  become  a  Catholic. 
Ranke,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Popes,"  devotes  a  whole 
chapter  to  this  extraordinary  woman,  and  she  is 
referred  to  here  merely  because  of  her  admiration  for 
Vieira,  and  also  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
first  priest  she  spoke  to  about  her  conversion  was  the 
Jesuit,  Antonio  Macedo,  who  was  the  confessor  of 
Pinto  Pereira,  the  Portuguese  ambassador  to  Sweden. 
The  "  Menology  "  tells  us  that  Macedo  did  not  wear 
his  priestly  dress  in  that  country.  He  was  the  ambas- 
sador's secretary  and  interpreter,  but  he  attracted  the 


Conspicuous  Personages          129 

attention  of  the  queen,  who  remembered  no  doubt 
that  the  Jesuit,  Possevin,  had  appeared  in  the  same 
court,  in  the  time  of  John  III,  disguised  as  an  officer. 
She  finally  asked  Macedo  about  it,  and  he  admitted 
that  he  was  a  Jesuit.  Then  began  a  series  of  conversa- 
tions in  Latin,  which  Christina  spoke  perfectly,  as  she 
did  several  other  languages.  She  finally  told  him  that 
she  had  resolved  to  become  a  Catholic,  even  if  she 
forfeited  her  crown,  and  she  commissioned  him  to 
inform  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  of  her  purpose.  To 
reward  Macedo  she  asked  the  Pope  to  make  him  a 
bishop,  but  as  he  had  been  a  missionary  in  Africa,  the 
mitre  did  not  appeal  to  him,  and  he  went  back  to 
Lisbon,  where  he  .died  after  sixty-seven  years  passed  in 
the  Society. 

Macedo's  departure  from  Stockholm  was  so  sudden 
that  it  excited  comment,  and  possibly  to  persuade  the 
public  she  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  the  queen 
pretended  to  despatch  messengers  in  pursuit  of  him. 
In  fact,  she  had  requested  the  General  of  the  Society 
to  send  some  of  the  most  trusted  members  of  the  Order 
to  Sweden.  It  may  be  that  the  old  African  missionary, 
Macedo,  was  not  skillful  enough  in  elucidating  some  of 
the  metaphysical  problems  which  she  was  discussing. 
"  In  February,  1652,"  says  Ranke,  "  the  Jesuits  who 
had  been  asked  for  arrived  in  Stockholm.  They  were 
two  young  men  who  represented  themselves  to  be 
Italian  noblemen  engaged  in  travel,  and  in  this  char- 
acter they  were  admitted  to  her  table."  They  were 
Fathers  Cavati  and  Molenia,  who  were  able  mathe- 
maticians as  well  as  theologians.  Descartes  also  was 
there  about  that  time.  The  queen  did  not  recognize 
the  young  noblemen  in  public,  but,  says  Ranke:  "  as 
they  were  walking  before  her  to  the  dining-hall,  she 
said,  in  a  low  voice  to  one  of  them :  '  Perhaps  you  have 
letters  for  me.'  Without  turning  his  head  he  replied 

9 


130  The  Jesuits 

that  he  had.  Then,  with  a  quick  word,  she  bade  him 
keep  silence.  On  the  following  morning  they  were 
conducted  secretly  to  the  palace.  Thus,"  continues 
Ranke,  "  to  the  royal  dwelling  of  Gustavus  Adolphus 
there  now  came  ambassadors  from  Rome  for  the 
purpose  of  holding  conferences  with  his  daughter  about 
joining  the  Catholic  Church.  The  charm  of  this  affair 
for  Christina  was  principally  the  conviction  that  no  one 
had  the  slightest  suspicion  about  her  proceedings." 

The  conferences  seem  to  have  been  long  drawn  out, 
although  the  envoys  subsequently  reported  that  "  Her 
Majesty  apprehended  with  most  ready  penetration  the 
whole  force  of  the  arguments  we  laid  before  her. 
Otherwise  we  should  have  consumed  much  time. 
Suddenly  she  appeared  to  abandon  every  desire  to 
carry  out  her  purpose,  and  attributed  her  doubts  to 
the  assaults  of  Satan.  Her  spiritual  advisers  were  in 
despair,  when  just  as  suddenly  she  exclaimed :  '  There 
is  no  use.  I  must  resign  my  crown.'  '  The  abdication 
was  made  with  great  solemnity  amid  the  tears  and 
protests  of  her  subjects.  She  left  her  country  and 
spent  the  rest  of  her  life  in  Rome,  where  her  unusual 
intellectual  abilities  and  great  learning  excited  the 
wonder  of  everyone.  Her  heroism  in  sacrificing  her 
kingdom  was,  of  course,  the  chief  subject  of  the  praise 
that  was  showered  upon  her. 

When  Vieira  arrived  in  Rome  and  fascinated  everyone 
by  his  extraordinary  eloquence,  Christina  wanted  him 
to  be  her  spiritual  director.  But  the  old  hero  preferred 
ruder  work,  and  by  1681  he  was  again  back  in  Brazil 
among  his  Indians.  Even  in  his  old  age  he  was  a 
storm  centre,  and  although  he  had  done  so  much  for 
the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  humanity,  he  was 
deprived  of  both  active  and  passive  voice  in  the  Society, 
that  is  to  say,  he  could  neither  vote  for  any  measures 
of  administration  or  be  eligible  to  any  office,  because 


Conspicuous  Personages          131 

he  was  supposed  to  have  canvassed  a  provincial 
congregation.  It  was  only  after  he  had  expired,  at 
the  age  of  ninety,  that  his  innocence  was  established. 
His  knowledge  of  scripture,  theology,  history,  and 
literature  was  stupendous,  and  he  is  said  to  have  been 
familiar  with  the  language  of  six  of  the  native  races. 
Southey,  in  his  "  History  of  Brazil,"  calls  him  one  of 
the  greatest  statesmen  of  his  country.  He  was  a 
patriot,  whose  one  dream  was  to  see  Portugal  the 
standard-bearer  of  Christianity  in  the  Old  and  New 
Worlds.  As  an  orator  he  was  one  of  the  world's 
masters,  and  as  a  prose  writer  the  greatest  that  Portugal 
has  every  produced.  His  sermons  alone  fill  fifteen 
volumes,  and  there  are  many  of  his  manuscripts  to  be 
found  in  the  British  Museum,  the  National  Library 
of  Paris,  and  elsewhere. 

When  St.  Francis  Borgia,  the  third  General  of  the 
Society,  died  in  1572,  his  most  likely  successor  was 
Polanco,  who  had  been  the  secretary  of  St.  Ignatius, 
and  was  generally  credited  with  having  absorbed  the 
genuine  spirit  of  St.  Ignatius.  Had  he  been  elected, 
he  would  have  been  the  fourth  successive  Spanish 
General.  It  would  have  been  a  misfortune  at  that 
time,  and  would  have  fastened  on  the  members  of  the 
Society  the  name  which  was  already  given  to  them  in 
some  parts  of  Europe:  "the  Spanish  priests,"  a 
designation  that  would  have  been  an  implicit  denial 
of  the  catholicity  of  the  Order,  even  though  the  Spanish 
monarch  was  "  His  Catholic  Majesty." 

Their  devoted  friend,  Pope  Gregory  XIII,  saw  the 
danger  and  determined  to  avert  it.  Fortunately,  he 
had  just  been  asked  by  Philip  of  Spain,  Sebastian  of 
Portugal,  and  the  cardinal  inquisitor  not  to  allow  the 
election  of  Polanco,  who  was  of  Jewish  descent.  The 
Pope  determined  to  go  further  and  to  exclude  any 
Spaniard  from  the  office,  for  the  time  being.  At  the 


132  The  Jesuits 

customary  visit  of  the  delegates,  prior  to  the  election, 
he  intimated  that  as  there  had  been  three  successive 
Spanish  Generals,  it  might  be  wise,  in  view  of  the 
world-wide  expansion  of  the  Society,  to  elect  someone 
of  another  nationality,  and  he  suggested  Mercurian. 
Doubtless  his  words  found  a  ready  response  in  the 
hearts  of  many  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed, 
and  even  most  of  the  Spaniards  must  have  seen  the 
wisdom  of  the  change.  A  remonstrance,  however,  was 
respectfully  made  that  His  Holiness  was  thus  with- 
drawing from  the  Society  its  right  of  freedom  of 
election,  to  which  the  Pope  made  answer  that  such  was 
not  his  intention ;  but  in  case  a  Spaniard  was  chosen  he 
would  like  to  be  told  who  he  was,  before  the  public 
announcement  was  made.  As  the  Pope's  word  is  law, 
the  Spaniards  were  excluded  as  candidates,  and  appar- 
ently, as  a  measure  of  conciliation,  Everard  de 
Mercceur,  or  Mercurian,  was  elected.  As  his  native 
country,  Belgium,  was  then  subject  to  Spain,  the  blow 
thus  given  to  the  Spaniards  was,  to  a  certain  extent, 
softened.  But  it  was  the  beginning  of  trouble  which 
at  one  time  almost  threatened  the  Society  with  destruc- 
tion. Fortunately,  Mercurian's  successor,  Aquaviva, 
had  to  deal  with  it  when  it  came. 

Mercurian  had  as  yet  done  nothing  great  enough  to 
attract  public  attention;  but  he  evidently  enjoyed  the 
unqualified  esteem  of  the  Pope.  In  the  Society  itself 
he  had  filled  many  important  posts  such  as  vice- 
praepositus  of  the  professed  house  in  Rome,  rector 
of  the  new  college  of  Perugia,  visitor  and  provincial 
of  Flanders  and  France,  and  assistant  of  Francis  Borgia. 
And  in  all  of  these  charges  he  was  said  to  have  re- 
produced in  his  government  the  living  image  of  St. 
Ignatius.  A  man  with  such  a  reputation  was 
invaluable,  especially  for  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
Society,  and  that  is  of  infinitely  greater  importance 


Conspicuous  Personages          133 

than  outward  show.  There  is  one  thing  for  which  the 
Order  is  especially  very  grateful  to  him  namely,  the 
"  Summary  of  the  Constitutions,"  and  the  "  Common 
Rules  "  and  the  rules  for  each  office,  which  he  drew  up  at 
the  beginning  of  his  administration.  This  digest  is  read 
every  month  in  the  refectory  of  every  Jesuit  house  and 
selections  from  it  form  the  basis  of  the  domestic 
exhortations  given  twice  a  month  to  the  communities 
by  the  rector  or  spiritual  father.  By  this  means  the 
character  and  purpose  of  the  Institute  is  kept  con- 
tinually before  the  eyes  of  every  Jesuit,  from  the 
youngest  novice  to  the  oldest  professed,  and  they  are 
made  to  see  plainly  that  there  is  nothing  cryptic  or 
esoteric  in  the  government  of  the  Society.  Hence, 
when  the  priest,  after  his  ordination,  goes  through 
what  is  called  his  third  year  of  probation,  in  which 
the  study  of  the  Institute  constitutes  a  large  part 
of  his  work,  nothing  really  new  is  presented  to  him. 
It  is  familiar  matter  studied  more  profoundly. 

There  were  other  great  men  whose  names  might 
be  mentioned  here,  but  they  will  appear  later  in  the 
course  of  this  history. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ENGLISH   MISSION 

Conditions  after  Henry  VIII  —  Allen  —  Persons  —  Campion  — 
Entrance  into  England  —  Kingsley's  Caricature  —  Thomas  Pounde  — 
Stephens  —  Capture  and  death  of  Campion  —  Other  Martyrs  —  South- 
well, Walpole  —  Jesuits  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  —  The  English  Suc- 
cession —  Dissensions  —  The  Archpriest  Blackwell  —  The  Appellants 
—  The  Bye- Plot  —  Accession  of  James  I  —  The  Gunpowder  Plot  — 
Garnet,  Gerard. 

WHEN  Dr  Allen  suggested  to  Father  Mercurian  to  send 
Jesuits  to  the  English  mission,  Claudius  Aquaviva 
came  forward  as  an  enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  under- 
taking, and  was  one  of  the  first  to  volunteer.  He  was 
not,  however,  accepted,  because  evidently  only  English- 
speaking  priests  would  be  of  any  use  there.  But  his 
election  as  General  shortly  after  gave  new  courage  to 
Campion  and  his  companions  when  they  were  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight. 

Dr  Allen  had  left  England  in  1561,  and  taken  refuge 
in  Belgium,  but  he  returned  in  the  following  year, 
and  went  around  among  the  persecuted  Catholics, 
exhorting  them  to  be  steadfast  in  their  Faith.  He 
found  that  the  people  were  not  Protestants  by  choice, 
and  he  was  convinced  that  all  they  needed  was  an 
organized  body  of  trained  men  to  look  after  their 
spiritual  needs,  to  comfort  them  in  their  trials,  and 
to  keep  them  well-instructed  in  their  religion.  Because 
of  the  lack  of  such  help  they  were  not  only  becoming 
indifferent,  but  were  almost  ready  to  compromise  with 
their  persecutors.  Henry  had  confiscated  ninety 
colleges,  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  fourteen 
chantries  and  free  chapels  and  ten  hospitals,  besides 
putting  to  death  seventy-six  priests  and  monks, 

[134] 


The  English  Mission  135 

beginning  with  Fisher,  the  Bishop  of  Rochester,  as 
well  as  a  great  number  of  others,  gentle  and  simple, 
conspicuous  among  whom  was  the  illustrious  chancellor, 
Thomas  More.  There  was  a  partial  cessation  of 
persecution  when  Edward  VI,  a  boy,  was  placed 
on  the  throne,  and,  of  course,  the  conditions  changed 
completely  when  Mary  Tudor  came  to  her  own.  But 
when  the  terrible  Elizabeth,  infuriated  by  her  excom- 
munication, took  the  reins  of  government  in  her  hands, 
no  one  was  safe.  Unfortunately,  however,  in  the 
interval,  the  people  had  become  used  to  the  situation, 
and  it  began  to  be  a  common  thing  for  them  to  resort 
to  all  sorts  of  subterfuges,  even  going  to  Protestant 
churches  to  conceal  their  Faith.  Hence,  there  was 
great  danger  that,  in  the  very  near  future,  Catholicity 
would  completely  die  out  in  England.  Allen  proposed 
to  Father  Mercurian  to  employ  the  Society  to  avert 
that  disaster. 

Some  of  the  General's  consultors  balked  at  the 
project  because  it  implied  an  absolutely  novel  con- 
dition of  missionary  life.  There  were  none  of  the 
community  helps,  such  as  were  available  even  in  the 
Indies  and  in  Japan;  for,  in  England,  the  priest  would 
have  to  go  about  as  a  peddler,  or  a  soldier,  or  a  sailor, 
or  the  like,  mingling  with  all  sorts  of  people,  in  all 
sorts  of  surroundings,  and  would  thus  be  in  danger  of 
losing  his  religious  spirit.  The  obvious  reply  was 
that  if  a  man  neglected  what  helps  were  at  hand  he 
would  no  doubt  be  in  danger  of  losing  his  vocation, 
but  that  otherwise  God  would  provide.  Allen  had 
already  founded  a  missionary  house  at  Douai  in  1568, 
and  its  success  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that 
one  hundred  and  sixty  priests,  most  of  them  from 
the  secular  clergy,  who  had  been  trained  there,  were 
martyred  for  the  Faith.  He  had  succeeded  also 
in  obtaining  another  establishment  in  Rome.  In 


136  The  Jesuits 

1578,  however,  when  the  occupants  of  Douai  were 
expelled,  they  were  lodged  at  Rheims  in  the  house  of 
the  Jesuits.  Meantime,  the  Roman  foundation  had 
been  entrusted  to  the  Society;  and  with  these  two 
sources  of  supplies  now  at  his  disposal,  Father  Mercurian 
determined  to  begin  the  great  work. 

The  most  conspicuous  figure  in  this  heroic  enterprise 
was  Edmund  Campion.  He  was  born  in  London,  and 
after  the  usual  training  in  a  grammar  school  was 
sent  to  Christ's  Hospital.  There  he  towered  head  and 
shoulders  over  everyone;  and  when  Queen  Mary  made 
her  solemn  entry  into  London,  it  was  he  who  made 
an  address  of  welcome  to  her  at  St.  Paul's  School. 
With  the  queen  on  that  occasion  was  her  sister  Eliza- 
beth. Later,  when  Sir  Thomas  White  founded  St. 
John's  College,  Oxford,  Campion  was  made  a  junior 
fellow  there,  and  "  for  twelve  years,"  says  "  The 
Catholic  Encyclopedia,"  "  he  was  the  idol  of  Oxford, 
and  was  followed  and  imitated  as  no  man  ever  was 
in  an  English  University  except  himself  and  Newman." 
The  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  "  goes  further 
and  informs  us  that  "  he  was  so  greatly  admired  for  his 
grace  of  eloquence  that  young  men  imitated  not  only 
his  phrases  but  his  gait,  and  revered  him  as  a  second 
Cicero."  He  was  chosen  to  deliver  the  oration  at  the 
re-interment  of  Amy  Robsart,  the  murdered  wife  of 
Robert  Dudley,  afterwards  Earl  of  Leicester.  The 
funeral  discourse  on  the  founder  of  the  college  was 
also  assigned  to  him.  In  1566  when  Queen  Elizabeth 
visited  Oxford,  Campion  welcomed  her  in  the  name  of 
the  University,  and  was  defender  in  a  Latin  disputation 
held  in  presence  of  her  majesty.  The  queen  expressed 
her  admiration  of  his  eloquence  and  commended  him 
particularly  to  Dudley  for  advancement. 

Father  Persons  assures  us  that  "  Campion  was  always 
a  Catholic  at  heart,  and  utterly  condemned  all  the 


The  English  Mission  137 

form  and  substance  of  the  new  religion.  Yet  the 
sugared  words  of  the  great  folk,  especially  the  queen, 
joined  with  pregnant  hopes  of  speedy  and  great  prefer- 
ment, so  enticed  him  that  he  knew  not  which  way  to 
turn."  While  in  this  state  of  mind,  he  was  induced  by 
Cheyney,  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  who  had  retained 
much  of  the  ancient  Faith,  to  accept  deacon's  orders  and 
to  pronounce  the  oath  of  supremacy,  but  the  reproaches 
of  a  friend  opened  his  eyes  to  his  sin;  and  in  anguish 
of  soul,  he  abandoned  all  his  collegiate  honors.  In 
August,  1569,  he  set  out  for  Ireland.  The  reason  for 
going  there  was  to  participate  in  a  movement  for 
resurrecting  the  old  papal  University  of  Dublin,  the 
direction  of  which  was  to  be  entrusted  largely  to  him. 
The  scheme,  however,  fell  through,  chiefly  on  account 
of  Campion,  but  very  much  to  his  credit.  His  papistry 
was  too  open.  Meantime,  he  had  written  a  "  History 
of  Ireland  "  based  chiefly  on  Giraldus  Cambrensis, 
which  has  ever  since  strongly  prejudiced  Irish  people 
against  him,  notwithstanding  his  sanctity.  But  his 
good  name  has  recently  been  restored  by  the  dis- 
tinguished Jesuit  historian,  Father  Edmund  Hogan,  who 
tells  us,  that  when  Campion  fled  from  Dublin  to  escape 
arrest  for  being  a  Catholic  his  manuscript  fell  into  the 
hands  of  his  pursuers  who  garbled  and  mutilated  it  at 
pleasure.  He  himself  never  published  the  book. 

It  will  be  of  interest  to  students  of  literature  to 
learn  that  one  of  Shakespeare's  most  famous  passages 
was  borrowed  from  this  "  History,"  namely,  the 
description  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  in  Henry  VIII.  Whole 
passages  have  been  worked  into  the  play.  As  Campion 
wrote  it  in  1569,  when  Shakespeare  was  only  four 
or  five  years  old,  its  authorship  is  beyond  dispute. 
Conditions  finally  became  so  unpleasant  in  Dublin  that 
he  was  obliged  to  take  to  flight.  He  left  Ireland 
disguised  as  a  serving-man  and  reached  London,  in 


138  The  Jesuits 

time  to  witness  the  execution  of  Dr.  Storey  in  June, 
1571.  That  completed  the  work  of  his  conversion, 
and  he  went  to  Douai,  where  after  a  recantation  of 
his  heresy,  he  resumed  his  course  of  scholastic  theology ; 
a  year  later,  he  set  out  for  Rome  as  a  penniless  pilgrim, 
arriving  there  barefooted  and  in  rags,  much  to  the 
amazement  of  one  of  his  former  Oxford  admirers,  who 
met  him  on  the  street. 

He  was  received  into  the  Society  by  Father 
Mercurian,  and  made  his  novitiate  at  Prague  in 
Bohemia,  where  he  was  ordained  in  1578.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  group  of  missionaries  who  left  the 
Continent  for  England  under  the  guidance  of  Persons. 
In  the  party  were  Dr.  Goldwell,  Bishop  of  Saint 
Asaph,  thirteen  secular  priests,  three  Jesuits :  Persons, 
Campion  and  Ralph  Emerson,  a  lay-brother,  besides 
two  young  men  not  in  orders.  Goldwell  had  been 
consecrated  as  early  as  1555  and  had  accompanied 
Cardinal  Pole  to  England;  he  was  England's  sole 
representative  at  the  Council  of  Trent.  He  was  now 
on  his  way  again  to  his  native  country,  but  he  fell  ill 
at  Rheims  and,  according  to  the  "  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography,"  was  recalled  by  the  Pope. 
"This,"  says  Dr.  Guilday  (English  Refugees,  p.  125), 
"  was  a  disappointment  to  Persons.  The  presence  of 
a  bishop  in  England  had  been  a  condition  of  the  Jesuits' 
taking  up  the  burden  of  converting  lapsed  Catholics, 
and  despite  all  the  rebuffs  the  demand  for  a  hierarchy 
met  at  Rome,  the  Jesuits  themselves  continually 
renewed  it . "  These  words  of  the  distinguished  historian 
who  is  the  most  recent  witness  in  the  matter  of  the 
archipresbyterate  are  invaluable  testimony  on  a  sorely 
controverted  point. 

The  missionaries  left  Rome  on  foot,  and  passing 
through  Milan  were  detained  for  a  week  by  St.  Charles 
Borromeo,  who  made  Campion  discourse  every  day 


The  English  Mission  139 

to  the  episcopal  household  on  some  theological  topic. 
From  there  they  directed  their  steps  to  Geneva  and 
were  bold  enough  to  visit  Theodore  Beza  in  his  own 
house,  but  he  refused  to  discuss  religious  matters. 
At  Rheims  Campion  spoke  to  the  students  on  the 
glory  of  martyrdom.  Finally  he  and  Persons  arrived 
at  Calais,  and  made  their  plans  to  cross  the  Channel; 
the  other  missionaries  had  meantime  scattered  along 
the  coast,  as  it  would  have  been  manifestly  unsafe  for 
all  to  embark  at  the  same  place.  Persons  went  aboard 
the  boat  disguised  as  a  naval  officer,  and  on  stepping 
ashore  at  Dover  presented  himself  with  supreme 
audacity  to  the  port  warden  or  governor,  and  asked 
for  a  permit  for  his  friend  "  Patrick,"  a  merchant  who 
was  waiting  on  the  other  side  for  leave  to  cross. 
"  Patrick  "  was  Campion.  He  had  used  that  name 
when  escaping  from  Ireland,  and  as  it  had  stood  him 
in  good  stead  then,  he  again  assumed  it. 

Campion,  however,  did  not  play  his  part  as  well  as 
Persons,  for  the  governor  eyed  him  intently  and  said: 
'  You  are  Doctor  Allen."  "  Indeed,  I  am  not,"  replied 
Campion.  "  Well,  you  are  a  suspicious  character,  at 
all  events,  and  your  case  must  be  looked  into."  A 
council  was  accordingly  held,  and  it  was  decided  to 
send  the  new-comer  to  London,  under  an  armed  escort. 
Campion  thought  himself  lost,  but  up  in  his  heart 
arose  a  prayer:  "  O  Lord,  let  me  work  at  least 
one  year  for  my  country,  and  then  do  with  me  what 
Thou  wilt."  Immediately  a  change  came  over  the 
Governor's  face,  and,  to  the  amazement  of  everyone, 
he  said:  "I  was  mistaken;  you  can  go."  Full  of 
gratitude  to  God,  the  future  martyr  made  all  haste  for 
London,  where  someone  was  on  the  look-out  for  him, 
and  he  soon  met  Father  Persons. 

Such  are  the  plain  facts  taken  from  the  writings 
of  Campion  to  his  superiors,  describing  his  arrival  in 


140  The  Jesuits 

England.  But  the  public  mind  had  to  be  debauched 
on  this  as  on  every  other  point  concerning  the  Jesuits, 
even  at  the  expense  of  the  man  whom  Oxford  is  still 
proud  of  as  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman,  who  was  called 
by  Cecil  "  one  of  the  diamonds  of  England,"  and 
whose  grace  and  beauty  and  eloquence  made  him  the 
favorite  of  Dudley  and  Elizabeth.  In  spite  of  all  that, 
however,  Kingsley,  in  his  "Westward  Ho"  (chap,  iii), 
describes  Campion  at  this  juncture  of  his  life  as  "  a  gro- 
tesque dwarf  whose  sword,  getting  between  his  spindle 
shanks,  gave  him,  at  times,  the  appearance  of  having 
three  legs,  and  figuring  sometimes  as  a  tail  when  it 
stuck  out  behind.  He  was  so  small  that  he  could  only 
scratch  at  the  ribs  of  his  horse  which  he  was  trying  to 
mount  on  the  wrong  side,  but  he  finally  succeeded  in 
gaining  his  seat  by  the  help  of  a  stool."  He  also  wore 
"  a  tonsure,"  we  are  informed,  "  cut  by  apostolic  scis- 
sors," and  Londoner  though  he  was,  he  is  made  to  speak 
of  his  countrymen  as  "  Islanders."  Persons  also  is 
described  as  a  blustering,  blaspheming  bully,  who 
gives  himself  absolution  for  his  own  transgressions. 
All  this  is  omitted,  however,  from  the  school  edition 
of  "  Westward  Ho." 

Persons  and  Campion  set  to  work  immediately,  and 
soon  managed  to  call  a  meeting  of  the  priests  who  were 
in  hiding  in  various  places  of  the  country.  The  purpose 
of  the  summons  was  to  let  them  know  that  the 
new-comers  had  received  the  most  stringent  orders 
from  their  superiors  to  keep  absolutely  aloof  from 
anything  savoring  of  politics.  At  Hoxton,  Campion 
made  a  written  statement  to  that  effect;  and  it  was 
there  that  he  received  a  visit  from  one  of  the  most 
interesting,  and,  to  some  extent,  the  oddest  of  the 
English  missionaries  —  a  man  who  was  made  a  Jesuit 
by  letter  —  the  famous  Thomas  Pounde. 


The  English  Mission  141 

Pounde  had  begun  by  being  a  very  conspicuous  fop 
at  the  court  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  was  a  favorite 
of  the  queen,  and  had,  on  one  occasion,  prepared  a 
splendid  pageant  at  which  her  majesty  was  present. 
One  of  its  features  was  a  dance,  a  pas  seul  by  himself. 
However,  as  luck  would  have  it,  he  stumbled  and  fell 
right  at  the  queen's  feet.  The  accident  was  ridiculous 
enough  to  humiliate  him,  but  when  his  gracious 
sovereign  honored  him  with  a  brutal  kick,  and  called 
out  scoffingly :  "  Get  up,  Sir  Ox,"  Pounde  arose,  indeed, 
but  not  as  an  ox.  He  was  a  changed  man.  Up  to 
that,  though  a  Catholic,  he  had  put  his  religion  aside 
altogether.  Now,  he  openly  proclaimed  his  Faith  and 
exhorted  others  to  do  the  same.  The  result  was  that 
he  was  confined  in  almost  every  dungeon  of  the 
kingdom.  He  was  loaded  with  fetters  and  shut  up  in 
cells  where  no  ray  of  light  could  penetrate;  and  when 
liberated,  either  through  the  influence  -of  friends,  or 
because  he  had  served  the  appointed  term,  he  was 
incarcerated  again.  Everywhere  and  at  all  times  he 
preached  the  truths  of  the  Faith,  not  only  in  a  coura- 
geous, but  in  an  extraordinarily  joyous  fashion  to  his 
fellow-prisoners,  or  to  people  outside  the  jail,  making 
converts  of  many  and  inducing  others  to  amend  their 
lives.  Of  the  latter  class  was  a  certain  Thomas 
Cottam,  an  Oxford  man,  who,  thanks  to  his  friend 
Pounde,  not  only  became  very  devout,  but,  after  he 
had  succeeded  in  getting  to  the  Continent,  became  a 
Jesuit  and  returning  later  was  martyred  at  Tyburn 
on  May  30,  1582. 

A  chance  reading  of  the  Jesuit  missions  in  India  had 
quite  captivated  Pounde,  as  well  as  a  friend  of  his, 
named  Thomas  Stephens,  who  used  to  go  around 
disguised  as  Pounde's  servant.  They  determined  to 
make  for  the  Continent  and  to  ask  for  admission  to 


142  The  Jesuits 

the  Society.  On  the  way,  Pounde  was  captured  because 
he  had  stopped  too  long  in  trying  to  convert  a 
Protestant  who  had  given  him  shelter;  Stephens, 
however,  reached  Rome  and  was  admitted  to  the 
Society.  But  instead  of  being  sent  back  to  England, 
as  one  would  have  fancied,  his  longing  for  India  was 
satisfied,  and  we  find  him  in  Goa,  on  October  24,  1579. 
He  was  there  known  as  Padre  Estevao,  or  Estevan,  or 
again  as  Padre  Busten,  Buston,  or  de  Buston,  the 
latter  names  being  so  many  Portuguese  efforts  to 
pronounce  Bulstan,  in  Wiltshire,  England,  where 
Stephens  was  born  about  1549.  As  we  see  from  the 
dates,  he  had  then  reached  the  age  of  30.  He  is 
mentioned  in  Hakluyt's  "  Voyages "  as  the  first 
Englishman  who  ever  went  to  India.  Hakluyt's  infor- 
mation came  from  a  series  of  letters  which  Stephens 
wrote  to  his  father,  "  offering  the  strongest  inducements 
to  London  merchants  to  embark  on  Indian  specula- 
tions." These  letters  bore  such  evidence  of  sound 
commercial  knowledge  that  they  are  regarded  as 
having  suggested  the  formation  of  the  English  East 
India  Company. 

Father  Stephens  spent  his  first  five  years  as  minister 
of  the  professed  house  at  Goa,  and  was  then  sent  to 
Salsette  as  rector,  and,  for  a  time,  was  socius  to  the 
visitor.  After  that  he  spent  thirty-five  years  as  a 
missionary  among  the  Brahmin  Catholics  of  Salsette, 
but  his  labors  in  that  field  did  not  prevent  him  from 
doing  a  great  deal  of  hard  literary  work.  Thus,  he 
was  the  first  to  make  a  scientific  study  of  Canarese. 
He  also  plunged  into  Hindustani,  and  wrote  grammars 
and  books  of  devotion  in  those  languages.  Most  of 
his  writings,  however,  were  lost  at  the  time  of  the 
Suppression  of  the  Society.  He  died  in  Goa  in  1619. 
(The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  XIV,  292.) 


The  English  Mission  143 

Pounde's  Jesuit  work  was  quite  different  from  that 
of  Stephens.  Not  being  able  to  present  himself  in 
person  to  the  General,  he  asked  by  letter  to  be  received 
into  the  Order.  It  was  on  December  i,  1578,  while  he 
was  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  that  an  answer  came 
from  Father  Mercurian  granting  his  request.  That 
encouraged  him  to  labor  more  strenuously  than  ever, 
and  for  thirty  years  he  kept  on  defying  the  Government. 
Lingard  gives  one  notable  instance  of  his  audacity, 
though  the  great  historian  does  not  seem  to  be  aware 
that  Pounde  was  a  Jesuit.  In  the  proceedings  con- 
nected with  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  someone  was  sen- 
tenced for  harboring  a  Jesuit.  Pounde  appeared  in 
court  to  protest  against  the  ruling  of  the  judge,  with 
the  result  that  he  himself  was  arrested.  He  was 
condemned  to  have  one  of  his  ears  cut  off,  to  go  to 
prison  for  life,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  a  thousand  pounds, 
if  he  did  not  tell  who  advised  him  to  act  as  he  did. 
He  did  not  lose  his  ear;  while  he  was  in  the  Tower  the 
queen,  Anne  of  Denmark,  interceded  in  his  behalf. 
Her  loving  husband,  however,  King  James  I,  told  her: 
"  never  to  open  her  mouth  again  in  favor  of  a  Catholic." 
Finally  he  got  off  by  standing  a  whole  day  in  the 
pillory,  an  experience  which  he  probably  enjoyed,  for 
in  spite  of  dungeons  and  chains  and  loss  of  property 
and  his  own  terrible  austerity  —  he  often  scourged 
himself  to  blood  —  he  never  lost  his  spirit  of  fun.  He 
ended  his  wonderful  career  on  March  5,  1615,  at  the 
age  of  76,  at  Belmont,  breathing  his  last  in  the  room 

in  which  he  was  born. 

•  •«*.,%•, 

When  Campion  was  caught  on  his  way  to  Lancashire 
and  brought  to  London,  where  he  was  stretched  on 
the  rack  and  interrogated  again  and  again  while  being 
tortured,  the  story  was  circulated  that  he  had,  at  last, 
not  only  recanted,  but  had  revealed  secrets  of  the 


144  The  Jesuits 

confessional.  Pounde  was  in  a  fury  about  it,  and 
wrote  Campion  an  indignant  letter,  but  he  found  out 
that  it  was  one  of  the  usual  tricks  of  the  English 
Government.  The  same  villainy  had  been  practised 
by  Elizabeth's  father  on  More  and  Fisher,  butlike  them, 
Campion  was  too  true  a  man  to  yield  to  suffering.  On 
Au'gust  31,  by  order  of  the  queen,  bruised  as  he  was 
and  almost  dismembered  by  the  long  and  repeated 
rackings,  he  was  led  with  Sherwin  to  a  public  disputa- 
tion in  the  royal  presence.  Against  them  were  Nowell 
and  Day,  two  of  the  doughtiest  champions  of  heresy 
that  could  be  found  in  the  kingdom.  The  dispute 
lasted  for  four  hours  in  the  morning  and  four  in  the 
afternoon  —  the  intention  being  to  keep  it  up  for  days. 
It  was  during  this  debate  that  the  listeners  saw  with 
horror,  as  Campion  stretched  out  his  arms  to  emphasize 
his  words  by  a  gesture,  that  the  nails  had  been  torn 
off  the  fingers  of  both  hands.  The  public  discussions 
ended  after  the  second  session,  for  Nowell  and  Day 
had  been  completely  beaten.  What  happened  in  the 
examinations  held  after  that,  behind  closed  doors,  the 
authorities  never  let  the  world  know,  but  it  leaked  out 
that  Campion  had  made  many  converts  among  those 
who  came  to  hear  him.  One  of  them  was.  Arundel, 
who  subsequently  died  for  his  faith  on  the  scaffold. 

On  November  14  the  Jesuits,  Campion  and  Thomas 
Cottam,  with  Ralph  Sherwin,  Bosgrave,  Rhiston,  Luke 
Kirby,  Robert  Johnson  and  Orton,  secular  priests,  were 
called  for  trial.  They  all  pleaded  innocent  of  felony 
and  rebellion.  "  How  could  we  be  conspirators?" 
Campion  asked,  "  we  eight  men  never  met  before; 
and  some  of  us  have  never  seen  each  other."  On 
November  16,  six  others  were  cited.  It  was  on  this 
occasion  that  Campion  answered  the  question:  "  Do 
you  believe  Elizabeth  to  be  the  lawful  queen?"  "  I 
told  it  to  herself,"  he  said,  "  in  the  castle  of  the  Duke 


The  English  Mission  145 

of  Leicester."  Thither  he  had  been  called  for  a  private 
interview,  and  Elizabeth  recognized  him  as  the  Oxford 
man  and  the  little  lad  of  Christ  Church,  who,  not  then 
dreaming  of  the  terrible  future  in  store  for  him,  had 
paid  the  homage  of  respectful  and  perhaps  affectionate 
loyalty  to  her  majesty.  At  that  meeting  were  Leicester, 
the  Earl  of  Bedford,  two  secretaries  of  state  and  the 
queen.  As  the  prosecution  was  so  weak  and  the 
defense  made  by  Campion  was  so  unassailable,  everyone 
expected  an  acquittal,  but  to  their  amazement,  a 
verdict  of  guilty  was  brought  in.  "  The  trial,"  says 
Hallam,  "  was  as  unfairly  conducted  and  supported 
by  as  slender  evidence  as  can  be  found  in  our  books." 
(Constitutional  History  of  England,  I,  146.) 

When  the  presiding  judge  asked  the  accused  if 
they  had  anything  to  say,  Campion  replied:  "The 
only  thing  that  we  have  now  to  say  is  that  if  our 
religion  makes  us  traitors  we  are  worthy  to  be  con- 
demned, but  otherwise  we  are  and  have  been  as  true 
subjects  as  ever  the  queen  had.  In  condemning  us, 
you  condemn  all  your  own  ancestors,  all  that  was 
once  the  glory  of  England,  the  Island  of  Saints,  and 
the  most  devoted  child  of  the  See  of  St.  Peter.  For 
what  have  we  taught,  however  you  may  qualify  it 
with  the  odious  name  of  treason,  that  they  did  not 
uniformly  teach?  To  be  condemned  along  with  those 
who  were  the  glory  not  of  England  alone  but  of  the 
whole  world  by  their  degenerate  descendants  is 
both  glory  and  gladness  to  us.  God  lives;  posterity 
will  live,  and  their  judgment  is  not  so  liable  to  corrup- 
tion as  that  of  those  who  are  now  going  to  condemn 
us  to  death. "  When  the  sentence  was  uttered,  Campion 
lifting  up  his  voice  intoned  the  "  Te  Deum  laudamus  " 
in  which  the  others  joined,  following  with  the  anthem 
"  Haec  est  dies  quam  fecit  Dominus,  exultemus  et 
Isetemur  in  ea  "  (This  is  the  day  which  the  Lord  has 

10 


146  The  Jesuits 

made;  let  us  rejoice  and  exult  in  it.)  There  were 
conversions  in  the  courtroom  that  day. 

The  scene  at  the  scaffold  on  December  i,  was 
characterized  by  the  brutality  of  savages.  The  victims 
were  placed  on  hurdles  and  dragged  through  the  streets 
to  Tyburn.  Campion  was  the  first  to  mount  the  fatal 
cart,  and  when  the  rope  was  put  about  his  neck  and 
he  was  addressing  the  crowd  that  thronged  around, 
Knowles  interrupted  him  with,  "  Stop  your  preaching 
and  confess  yourself  a  traitor."  To  which  Campion 
replied,  "If  it  be  a  crime  to  be  a  Catholic,  I  am  a 
traitor."  He  continued  to  speak,  but  the  cart  was 
drawn  from  under  him  and  he  was  left  dangling  in 
the  air.  Before  he  breathed  his  last  he  was  cut  down, 
his  heart  was  torn  out  and  the  hangman  holding  it 
aloft  in  his  bloody  hand,  cried  out,  "  Behold  the  heart 
of  a  traitor!"  and  flung  it  into  the  fire.  Alexander 
Briant  and  Ralph  Sherwin  than  met  the  same  fate. 
Previous  to  this  gruesome  tragedy,  4,000  people  had 
been  won  back  to  the  Faith. 

Thomas  Cottam  and  William  Lacey  were  the  next 
English  martyrs  of  the  Society.  The  latter  calls  for 
special  mention.  He  was  a  Yorkshire  gentleman, 
who  for  some  time  thought  that  he  could,  with  a  safe 
conscience,  frequent  Protestant  places  of  worship, 
but  as  soon  as  he  was  made  aware  that  it  was  forbidden, 
he  desisted;  and  fines  and  vexations  of  all  kinds  failed 
to  change  his  resolution.  Becoming  a  widower,  he 
determined  in  spite  of  his  years  to  consecrate  himself 
to  God,  and  having  met  Dr.  Allen  at  Rheims,  he  went 
to  Rome,  where,  after  his  theological  studies  he  was 
ordained  a  priest,  and  returning  to  England  labored 
strenuously  to  revive  the  faith  of  his  fellow-country- 
men. He  succeeded  even  in  entering  a  jail  in  York 
where  a  number  of  priests  were  confined,  and  afforded 
them  whatever  help  he  could.  As  he  was  leaving,  he 


The  English  Mission  147 

was  arrested  and  was  executed  a  month  later,  August 
22,  1582.  Father  Possoz,  S.  J.,  the  author  of  "  Edmond 
Campion,"  says  "  there  is  no  mention  of  Lacy,  either 
in  Tanner  or  Alegambe,  but  I  found,  in  the  catalogue 
of  Rayssius,  '  Gulielmus  Lacaeus,  sacerdos  romanus 
qui  in  carcere  constitutus,  in  Societatem  Jesu  fuit 
receptus.' '  The  same  is  true  of  Thomas  Methame 
who  did  not  die  on  the  scaffold,  but  after  seventeen 
years  of  captivity  in  various  prisons,  gave  up  the 
ghost  at  Wisbech  in  1592  at  the  age  of  sixty.  He 
was  remarkable  for  his  profound  knowledge  both 
of  history  and  theology.  There  also  appears  on  the 
list  an  O'Mahoney  (John  Cornelius),  who  was  a  ward 
of  the  Countess  of  Arundel.  He  was  thrown  into  the 
Marshalsea,  where  Father  Henry  Garnet  admitted 
him  to  make  his  vows.  He  won  his  crown  at  Dorchester 
on  July  4,  1594.  His  name  is  not  found  in  the  "  Fasti 
Breviores  "  or  the  "  Menology,"  but  it  is  given  by 
Possoz. 

The  poet  Robert  Southwell  was  martyred  on  February 
21,  1595.  Writing  about  him,  Thurston  calls  attention 
to  an  interesting  coincidence  in  his  life.  His  grand- 
father, Sir  Richard  Southwell,  a  prominent  courtier 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  had  brought  the  poet 
Henry  Howard  to  the  block,  and  yet  Divine  providence 
made  their  respective  grandsons,  Robert  Southwell 
and  Philip,  Earl  of  Arundel,  devoted  friends  and 
fellow-prisoners  for  the  Faith.  The  poetry,  however, 
had  shifted  to  the  Southwell  side,  for,  unlike  his 
friend,  Arundel  did  not  cultivate  the  muse.  Southwell 
had  been  a  pupil  of  the  great  Lessius  at  Louvain, 
and  had  made  the  "grand  act "  in  philosophy  at  the 
age  of  seventeen.  At  Paris  he  applied  for  admission 
to  the  Society,  but  was  refused,  and  his  grief  on 
that  occasion  elicited  the  first  poetical  effusion  of 
his  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge.  Two  years 


148  The  Jesuits 

later,  however,  he  was  accepted;  he  was  ordained  in 
1584,  and  became  prefect  of  studies  in  the  English 
College  at  Rome.  In  1586  he  was  sent  to  England, 
and  passed  under  the  name  of  Cotton.  Two  years 
later  he  was  made  chaplain  of  the  Countess  of  Arundel, 
and  thus  came  into  relationship  with  her  imprisoned 
husband,  Philip,  the  ancestor  of  the  present  ducal 
house  of  Norfolk.  Southwell's  prose  elegy,  "  Triumphs 
Over  Death,"  was  written  to  console  the  earl.  In 
going  his  rounds  he  usually  passed  as  a  country  gentle- 
man, and  that  accounts  for  the  "  hawk  "  metaphors 
which  so  often  occur  in  his  verse.  He  was  finally 
arrested  at  Harrow  in  1592,  and  after  three  years' 
imprisonment  in  a  dungeon  which  was  swarming  with 
vermin,  he  was  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered.  Even 
during  his  lifetime,  his  poetical  works  were  highly 
esteemed. 

Henry  Walpole  was  one  of  the  spectators  at  the 
execution  of  Campion,  and  that  gave  him  his  vocation. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  Society  by  Aquaviva,  and 
made  his  second  year  of  noviceship  at  the  now  famous 
Verdun.  He  was  chaplain  of  the  Spanish  troops  in 
Flanders,  and  was  for  some  time  in  Spain.  From 
there  he  went  to  Dunkirk  where  he  embarked  for 
England  on  a  Spanish  ship  which  landed  him  on  the 
coast  sixteen  miles  from  York.  There  he  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Earl  of  Huntington,  a  grandnephew  of 
Cardinal  Pole,  but  a  bitter  foe  of  the  Church.  He 
was  shifted  about  from  prison  to  prison  for  a  year  or 
more,  and  was  stretched  on  the  rack  fourteen  times; 
at  length,  he  was  executed  at  York  on  April  7,  1595. 
Roger  Filcock,  who  was  put  to  death  at  London, 
on  February  22  or  27,  1601,  was  a  secular  priest  who 
was  admitted  to  the  Society  while  engaged  in  the  work 
of  the  missions.  So  also  was  Francis  Page.  He  had 
been  a  Protestant  lawyer,  and  was  engaged  to  a  Catholic 


The  English  Mission  149 

lady  who  converted  him,  but  instead  of  marrying  her 
he  became  a  priest.  One  day,  while  celebrating  Mass, 
he  was  so  nearly  caught  that  the  chalice  on  the  altar 
was  found,  but  he  had  time  to  get  into  his  secular 
clothes  and  escape.  He  applied  for  admission  to  the 
Society  and  was  received,  but  before  he  could  reach 
the  novitiate  in  Flanders  he  was  seized,  racked  and 
put  to  death  in  London  on  April  20,  1602. 

Twenty  years  after  the  visit  of  Salmeron  and  Brouet 
to  Ireland,  David  Wolff  was  sent  there  as  Apostolic 
delegate.  O'Reilly  in  his  "  Memorials  "  says,  he  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  who  labored  in  Ireland 
during  the  first  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  About 
1566,  he  was  captured  and  imprisoned  in  Dublin 
Castle,  from  which  he  escaped  to  Spain.  He  returned 
again  in  1572,  and  died  of  starvation  in  the  Castle  of 
Clonoan  near  the  borders  of  Galway.  Bishop  Tanner 
of  Cork  had  been  a  Jesuit,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  the 
Society  on  account  of  his  health.  He  was  imprisoned 
in  Dublin,  tortured  in  various  ways  and  in  1678,  after 
eighteen  months'  suffering,  died  in  chains.  In  1575 
Father  Edmund  Donnelly  was  hanged  and  disem- 
bowelled in  Cork  and  his  heart  thrown  into  the  fire. 
In  1585  Archbishop  Creagh,  the  Primate  of  Ireland, 
who  was  poisoned  while  in  jail  in  Dublin  made  his 
confession,  says  O'Reilly  "  to  a  fellow-prisoner,  Father 
Critonius  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  In  1588  Maurice 
Eustace,  a  young  novice,  was  hanged  and  quartered 
in  Dublin.  Brother  Dominick  Collins,  who  had  been 
a  soldier  in  France  and  Spain,  was  executed  at  Youghal 
in  1602.  He  was  the  last  of  Elizabeth's  victims. 

An  interesting  character  appears  at  this  juncture 
in  the  person  of  Father  Slingsby,  the  eldest  son  of 
Sir  Francis  Slingsby,  a  Protestant  Englishman  settled 
in  Ireland.  Young  Francis  was  converted  to  the  Faith 
in  1630,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years  old;  he  made 


150  The  Jesuits 

up  his  mind  to  be  a  Jesuit,  but  in  obedience  to  his 
father's  order  he  returned  to  Ireland.  He  was  impris- 
oned in  Dublin.  At  the  request  of  the  queen,  Henrietta 
Maria,  however,  he  was  not  executed  but  banished 
from  the  kingdom.  Returning  to  Rome  in  1636,  he 
was  received  into  the  Society  in  the  following  year. 
It  was  the  intention  of  his  Superiors  to  send  him  back 
to  Ireland  but  he  was  detained  on  the  Continent  for 
his  studies.  He  was  ordained  a  priest  in  1641  and  a 
short  time  afterwards  died  at  Naples  with  the  reputation 
of  a  saint.  Meantime  he  had  converted  most  of  his 
Protestant  relatives.  In  1642  Father  Henry  Caghwell, 
who  had  taught  philosophy  to  Father  Slingsby,  was 
dragged  from  his  house  in  Dublin,  paralytic  though 
he  was,  scourged  in  the  public  square,  and  left  lying 
on  the  ground  in  the  sight  of  his  friends,  none  of  whom 
dared  to  lift  him  up.  He  was  then  thrown  into  prison 
and  after  a  while  flung  with  twenty  other  priests  into 
a  ship.  He  reached  France  in  a  dying  condition,  but 
unexpectedly  recovered  and  made  his  way  back  to 
Ireland,  in  spite  of  a  storm  that  lasted  twenty-one  days. 
A  few  days  after  landing,  he  fell  a  victim  to  his  charity 
in  attending  the  sick. 

Scotland  had  been  visited  in  1562  by  Father  Gouda 
who  was  sent  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  to  invite  her 
to  have  her  bishops  go  to  the  Council  of  Trent.  He 
brought  back  with  him  six  young  Scots  who  were  to 
be  the  founders  of  the  'future  mission.  Prominent 
among  them  was  Edmund  Hay,  who  became  rector 
of  Clermont.  In  1584  Crichton  and  Gordon  attempted 
to  enter  their  country,  but  Crichton  was  captured, 
while  Gordon  succeeded  in  rinding  his  way  in,  and  was 
afterwards  joined  by  Hay  and  Drury.  The  Earl  of 
Huntley,  who  was  Gordon's  nephew,  and  for  a  time 
the  leader  of  the  Catholic  party,  joined  the  Kirk  in 
1597,  and  that  put  an  end  to  the  mission.  Prior  to 


The  English  Mission  151 

that,  Father  Abercrombie  made  a  Catholic  of  the 
queen,  Anne  of  Denmark,  but  she  was  not  much  to 
boast  of.  Meantime,  the  Scots  College  had  been 
founded  by  Mary  Stuart  in  Paris,  and  later  other 
colleges  were  begun  in  Rome  and  Madrid.  In  1614 
Father  John  Ogilvie  was  martyred  at  Glasgow,  while 
his  associates  were  banished. 

Coming  back  to  England,  where  more  tragedies  were 
to  be  enacted,  we  find  that  before  Campion  was  excuted, 
Persons  had  succeeded  in  reaching  France.  He  had 
intended  to  return  after  he  had  secured  a  printing- 
press  to  replace  the  one  that  had  been  seized,  but,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  England  never  saw  him  again.  Dr. 
Allen  would  not  allow  him  to  return;  he,  therefore, 
remained  on  the  Continent  and  was  conspicuous  as  a 
staunch  supporter  of  the  French  League  in  its  early 
days,  and  an  advocate  of  the  invasion  of  England  by 
Philip  II,  primarily  in  the  interest  of  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  but  also,  to  secure  a  successor  to  Queen  Elizabeth. 
We  find  him  frequently  in  Spain  on  various  missions: 
in  1588  to  reconcile  Philip  with  Father  Aquaviva; 
at  other  times,  to  obtain  from  the  king  the  foundations 
of  the  seminaries  of  Valladolid,  Seville  and  Madrid, 
as  well  as  of  two  residences  which  afterwards  developed 
into  collegiate  establishments.  Allen  had  left  England 
in  1565,  sixteen  years  before  Persons,  and  it  is  worth 
noting  that  during  the  three  years  which  he  spent  in 
going  around  from  place  to  place  to  sustain  the  courage 
of  the  persecuted  Catholics  he  was  not  yet  a  priest. 
He  was  ordained  only  when  he  crossed  over  to  Mechlin, 
sometime  in  1565;  it  was  not  until  1587,  twenty- two 
years  afterwards  that  he  was  made  a  cardinal;  he 
was  never  raised  to  the  episcopal  dignity.  He  was 
mentioned,  it  is  true,  for  the  See  of  Mechlin  by  Philip 
II,  but,  for  some  reason  which  has  never  been  thor- 
oughly explained,  the  nomination,  although  publicly 


152  The  Jesuits 

allowed  to  stand  several  years,  was  never  confirmed. 
He  continued  to  reside  at  the  English  College  in  Rome 
until  his  death  on  October  16,  1594. 

For  some  time  previously  the  burning  question 
of  the  English  succession  was  being  discussed  by 
English  Catholics  and  it  did  more  harm  to  the  Church 
in  England  than  the  persecutions  of  Henry  and  Eliza- 
beth. Elizabeth  had  left  no  issue,  and  had  not  des- 
ignated her  heir.  Some  were  in  favor  of  a  certain 
princess  of  Spain,  who  could  trace  her  lineage  back  to 
John  of  Gaunt,  and  both  Allen  and  Persons  espoused 
her  cause.  Others  held  out  for  James  VI  of  Scotland ; 
a  rabid  partisan  on  this  side  was  the  Scotch  Jesuit, 
Crichton,  who  was  supported  by  a  very  large  contingent 
of  the  secular  clergy.  A  similar  divergence  of  sentiment 
showed  itself  in  Rome.  Thus,  for  example,  the  cardinal- 
protector  of  the  English  mission,  Gaetano,  was 
pro-Spanish;  the  vice-protector,  Cardinal  Borghese, 
was  pro-French,  and  with  him  was  the  Jesuit  Cardinal 
Toletus,  who,  though  a  Spaniard,  was  against  his 
countrymen  in  this  matter.  The  Pope  was  not  pro- 
Spanish.  The  result  was  that  the  English  College  in 
Rome  was  torn  asunder  by  dissensions  or  "  stirs  " 
and  some  of  the  students  gave  public  scandal  in  the 
city.  Order  was  not  restored  till  Persons  was  recalled 
from  Spain  to  be  rector  of  the  college,  but  even  he 
was  told  to  his  face  by  some  of  his  boisterous  pupils 
that  they  would  never  change  their  opinion,  and  they 
contended  that  if  they  died  for  it  they  would  be  martyrs 
of  the  Faith.  Conditions  were  much  worse  in  England 
itself.  Even  among  the  priests  who  were  confined  at 
Wisbeach,  bitter  disputes  were  kept  up  year  after  year 
in  a  way  that  was  the  reverse  of  edifying.  Finally, 
when  cognizance  of  this  deplorable  state  of  affairs 
was  taken  at  Rome,  Father  Persons  was  requested  to 
suggest  a  remedy,  after  Dr.  Stapleton,  who  was  a 


The  English  Mission  153 

pro-Spaniard,  had  been  summoned  to  Rome,  but  had 
failed  to  arrive  on  account  of  ill-health.  In  1597 
Persons,  now  no  longer  rector  of  the  college,  presented 
to  the  Pope  a  memorial  drawn  up  in  England  asking 
for  the  appointment  of  two  bishops,  one  for  England 
proper,  and  the  other  for  the  English  in  Flanders. 
This  proposition  was  sent  to  a  commission  of  the  Holy 
Office,  but  they  gave  an  adverse  decision,  namely 
that  the  new  hierarchy  should  not  be  episcopal,  but 
sacerdotal,  with  an  archpriest  at  its  head. 

Persons,  who  had  been  from  the  outset  insisting  on 
the  necessity  of  sending  a  bishop  to  England,  did  not 
easily  give  up  his  plan,  and  he  persuaded  Cardinal 
Gaetano  to  take  him  around  to  all  the  members  of  the 
commission  in  order  to  press  his  views  upon  them, 
but  without  avail.  Out  of  caution,  the  Pope  resolved 
not  to  set  up  the  hierarchy  by  Papal  brief,  and  he  gave 
orders  to  the  cardinal-protector,  Gaetano,  to  issue 
"  constitutive  letters  "  to  that  effect.  The  draft  for 
these  letters  was  prepared  in  the  Papal  Archivi  dei 
Brevi,  where  it  is  still  extant  (Pollen,  Institution  of 
the  Archpriest  Blackwell,  p.  25 ;  see  also  Meyer,  England 
and  the  Church  under  Elizabeth,  p.  409.  Meyer  is  a 
German  Protestant).  Hence,  it  is  clear  tha't  the 
Jesuits  are  not  responsible  for  the  establishment  of 
an  archipresbyterate  instead  of  an  episcopate  to  rule 
England.  It  was  the  explicit  act  of  the  Holy  Office 
and  of  the  Pope.  Moreover,  the  trouble  that  sub- 
sequently arose  was  due,  not  from  the  function  itself, 
but  from  the  person  to  whom  it  was  entrusted;  for, 
though  Blackwell  was  the  man  most  in  evidence  at 
that  time,  and  one  for  whom  everyone  would  have 
voted,  he  had  too  exalted  an  idea  of  his  new  dignity, 
and  resorted  to  such  high-handed  and  autocratic 
methods  that  his  rule  became  intolerable.  As  a  result, 
two  Appellants  made  their  way  to  Rome,  as  repre- 


154  The  Jesuits 

sentatives  of  the  clergy,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
no  such  commission  had  been  given  them.  On  their 
arrival,  they  were  promptly  put  in  seclusion  in  one  of 
the  colleges,  and  were  forbidden  to  return  to  England. 

Then  began  a  bitter  war  of  pamphlets  between  the 
adherents  and  the  adversaries  of  the  archpriest. 
Persons,  and  the  Jesuits,  in  general,  were  especially 
assailed.  One  of  the  malcontents,  Bluet,  actually 
put  himself  in  communication  with  the  Protestant 
Bishop  Bancroft,  who  expressed  the  opinion  that 
"  it  was  clearer  than  light  that  Persons  had  no  other 
object  except  the  conquest  of  England  by  the 
Spaniards."  Bluet  assented,  and  added  that  "  the 
charge  against  the  Jesuit  would  be  proved  best  by  our 
appeal  to  the  Pope,  in  which  we  should  make  all  our 
grievances  manifest."  Bancroft  revealed  this  to  the 
queen,  and  the  government  then  did  all  in  its  power 
to  foment  the  dissensions  and  facilitate  the  appeal 
to  the  Pope.  In  1602  another  party  of  Appellants 
set  out  for  Rome  with  no  authorization  whatever, 
except  that  of  their  own  faction.  On  their  way  they 
were  joined  by  a  Dr.  Cecil,  who  was,  though  tljey  were 
unaware  of  it,  in  the  employ  of  the  English  Government 
as  a  spy  —  a  degradation  to  which  he  had  descended, 
not  precisely  to  ruin  his  co-religionists,  but  because 
he  was  under  the  delusion  that  he  could  so  reconstruct 
the  Church  in  England  that  it  would  be  acceptable 
to  the  queen. 

Cecil  and  his  companions  were  admitted  to  Rome 
only  because  the  French  Ambassador,  de  B6thune, 
took  them  under  his  protection.  He  had  constituted 
himself  their  patron,  not,  however,  for  religious  reasons, 
but  merely  to  score  a  point  against  the  influence  of  the 
King  of  Spain  with  the  Pope.  Their  reception  by  his 
Holiness  was  extremely  cold,  and  when  they  reported 
back  to  de  Bethune,  he  appeared  before  the  Pope  on 


The  English  Mission  155 

the  next  day,  and  said:  "  Hitherto  the  Catholic  policy 
has  been  grossly  wrong  (turpiter  erratum  est).  Nothing 
has  been  tried  except  arms,  poisons,  and  plots.  If 
only  these  were  laid  aside  Elizabeth  would  be  tolerant. 
Therefore,  (i)  Your  Holiness  must  withdraw  your 
censures  from  the  queen;  (2)  you  must  threaten  the 
Catholics  with  censure  if  they  attempt  political 
measures  against  her  directly  or  indirectly;  (3) 
Father  Persons  and  his  like  must  be  chastised  and 
expelled  from  your  seminaries;  (4)  the  Archpriest, 
who  seems  to  have  been  constituted  solely  to  help  the 
Spanish  faction  by  false  informations,  should  be 
removed  or  much  restrained;  (5)  if  perhaps  all  this 
cannot  be  done  at  once,  a  beginning  should  be  made 
by  giving  satisfaction  to  the  Appellant  priests;  (6) 
then,  by  degrees,  Henri  will  intervene  and  Elizabeth's 
anger  will  cool  down."  As  Pollen  remarks:  "The 
Frenchman's  boldness  was  almost  sublime.  To  throw 
over  St.  Pius  V,  Cardinal  Allen,  Gregory,  Sixtus, 
Campion  and  all  the  seminaries,  with  one  sweeping 
remark :  turpiter  erratum  est  —  was  worthy  of  la  furie 
francaise.  De  Bethune  scoffed  at  a  past  already 
acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Church, 
as  a  period  of  murder  plots,  diversified  by  armed 
invasions." 

On  October  12  the  Pope  gave  a  Brief  to  the  con- 
tending parties  to  settle  their  quarrel.  Both  sides 
shouted  victory,  and  the  paper  was  at  once  sent  to 
England,  where  it  was  intercepted  by  Elizabeth's 
spies.  The  government  responded  by  a  proclamation 
against  the  Catholic  clergy,  banishing  them  from  the 
realm  lest  it  might  be  thought  that  Elizabeth  had  ever 
meant  to  grant  toleration.  "  God  doth  know  our 
innocency,"  it  said,  "  of  any  such  imagining."  The 
royal  proclamation  was  cunningly  devised.  It  declared 
that  all  Jesuits  were  unqualified  traitors  and  must 


156  The  Jesuits 

leave  the  country  within  thirty  days.  For  other 
Catholics,  a  commission  was  to  be  appointed  which, 
after  three  months,  was  to  begin  an  individual  exami- 
nation of  all  suspects  and  deal  with  them  at  discretion. 

By  the  Scottish  party  this  was  regarded  as  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  era,  and  they,  consequently,  drafted  an 
instrument  stating:  (i)  that  they  owed  the  same  civil 
obedience  to  the  queen  as  that  which  bound  Catholic 
priests  to  Catholic  sovereigns;  (2)  that  they  would 
inform  her  of  any  plots  or  attempts  at  evasion,  even 
when  made  to  place  a  Catholic  sovereign  on  the 
throne;  (3)  that  were  any  excommunication  issued 
against  them  on  account  of  their  performance  of  this 
duty,  they  would  regard  it  as  not  binding.  This  state- 
ment was  issued  on  January  3 1 ,  1 693 .  It  never  reached 
Elizabeth,  for  she  died  in  the  following  March.  But 
as  it  stood,  it  was  in  direct  contravention  of  the  Pope's 
instructions  to  the  clergy  to  do  all  in  their  power, 
short  of  rebellion,  to  restore  the  Catholic  succession. 

Before  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  two  clergymen, 
Watson  and  Clarke  had  gone  to  Scotland  to  sound 
James  on  his  possible  attitude  to  English  Catholics 
in  case  he  obtained  the  throne.  Of  course,  he  was 
extremely  affable,  to  them,  as  he  was  to  the  English 
Puritans,  who  were  just  then  arrayed  in  opposition 
to  the  Established  Church.  But  he  was  no  sooner 
king  than  he  began  to  treat  both  Puritans  and  Catholics 
with  such  rigor  that  a  plot  was  formed  by  both  of  the 
aggrieved  parties  to  seize  his  person  and  compel  him 
to  modify  his  policy.  Among  the  Protestant  con- 
spirators were  such  men  as  Cobham,  Markham,  Grey 
and  Walter  Raleigh.  The  whole  history  of  this  singular 
combination,  however,  is  so  confused  that  it  is  hard  to 
pronounce  with  certainty  as  to  what  really  was  done 
or  intended.  But  it  appears  that  the  purpose  of  the 
Catholic  conspirators  was  to  allow  the  king  to  be  taken 


The  English  Mission  157 

prisoner  by  the  Puritans  and  then  to  rescue  him  from 
their  hands.  It  was  called  the  Bye  Plot,  and  was 
based  on  the  hope  that  James  would  be  so  grateful 
for  this  act  of  devotion  to  his  interest  that  he  would 
grant  all  their  requests.  On  the  other  hand,  such 
childish  simplicity  seems  almost  incredible.  It  was 
worthy  of  the  visionary,  Watson,  who  planned  it. 

The  farce  ended  in  a  tragedy.  The  two  priests  were 
hanged  without  more  ado.  Of  the  Puritans,  Cobham 
was  sent  to  the  scaffold,  and  Grey,  Markham  and 
Raleigh,  after  being  condemned,  were  pardoned. 
King  James  received  a  letter  from  the  Pope  regretting 
the  action  of  Watson  and  Clarke,  and  assuring  him 
of  the  abhorrence  with  which  he  regarded  all  acts  of 
disloyalty.  He  also  expressed  his  willingness  to  recall 
any  missionary  who  might  be  an  object  of  suspicion, 
and  both  Jesuits  and  seculars  were  ordered  to  confine 
themselves  to  their  spiritual  duties  and  to  discourage 
by  every  means  in  their  power  any  attempt  to  disturb 
the  tranquillity  of  the  realm  (Lingard,  History  of 
England,  IX,  21). 

In  1604  James  drew  up  for  Catholics  an  oath  of 
allegiance  which  not  only  denied  the  power  of  the  Pope 
to  depose  kings,  but  declared  that  such  a  claim  was 
heretical,  impious  and  damnable.  It  was  condemned 
by  Paul  V,  but  the  Archpriest  Blackwell  publicly 
announced  that  notwithstanding  the  condemnation, 
the  oath  might  be  conscientiously  taken  by  any  English 
Catholic,  and  he  accepted  it  himself  before  the  Com- 
missioners of  Lambeth.  Bellarmine  and  Persons 
wrote  long  expostulations  to  him,  but  without  avail, 
He  was  finally  deposed  from  office,  and  Birkhead 
took  his  place  as  archpriest.  "  This  measure,"  says 
Lingard,  "  was  productive  of  a  deep  and  long-continued 
schism  in  the  Catholic  body.  The  greater  number, 
swayed  by  the  authority  of  the  new  Archpriest  and 


158  The  Jesuits 

of  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  looked  upon  the  oath  as  a 
denial  of  their  religion;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  many 
preferring  to  be  satisfied  with  the  arguments  of  Black- 
well  and  his  advocates,  cheerfully  took  it,  when  it 
was  offered,  and  thus  freed  themselves  from  the  severe 
penalties  to  which  they  would  have  been  subject  by 
the  refusal  "  (op.  cit,  IX,  77). 

Now  came  the  disaster.  Irritated  beyond  measure 
by  the  treachery  and  the  tyranny  of  King  James  I, 
a  number  of  Catholic  gentlemen,  some  of  them  recent 
converts,  formed  a  plot  to  blow  up  the  House  of 
Parliament  and  so  get  rid  of  king,  lords  and  commons 
by  one  blow. 

While  the  plans  were  being  laid,  some  of  the  con- 
spirators began  to  doubt  about  their  right  to  involve 
so  many  innocent  people  in  the  wholesale  ruin  that 
must  result  from  this  terrible  crime.  To  settle  their 
scruples,  Catesby,  the  chief  plotter,  proposed  a  sup- 
posititious case  to  Father  Garnet,  the  Jesuit  pro- 
vincial. "  I  am  going  to  join  the  army  of  the  Archduke 
on  the  Continent,"  he  said,  "and  I  may  be  ordered, 
for  example,  to  blow  up  a  mine  in  order  to  destroy  the 
enemy.  Can  I  do  so,  even  if  a  number  of  innocent 
persons  are  killed?"  The  answer  of  course  was  in 
the  affirmative,  and  then  Catesby  made  haste  to  assure 
his  friends  that  they  could  proceed  in  their  work 
with  a  safe  conscience.  But  as  time  wore  on,  he  was 
noticed  by  his  friends  to  be  habitually  excited,  very 
often  absent  from  home,  and  apparently  not  preparing 
to  go  abroad,  as  he  had  said  he  intended  to  do.  Hence, 
suspicion  was  aroused,  and  Garnet,  having  received 
some  vague  hints  of  the  conspiracy,  took  occasion  at 
Catesby's  own  table,  to  inculcate  on  his  host  the 
necessity  of  submitting  meekly  to  the  persecution 
then  going  on.  Whereupon  Catesby  burst  out  in  a 
rage:  "It  is  to  you  and  such  as  you,"  he  exclaimed, 


The  English  Mission  159 

"  that  we  owe  our  present  calamities.  This  doctrine 
of  non-resistance  makes  us  slaves.  No  priest  or  pontiff 
can  deprive  a  man  of  the  right  to  repel  injustice." 
Garnet,  alarmed  at  this  utterance,  immediately  wrote 
to  his  superior  in  Rome,  and  in  due  time  received  two 
letters,  one  from  the  General,  the  other  from  the  Pope, 
putting  him  under  strict  orders  to  do  all  in  his  power 
to  prevent  any  attempt  against  the  State.  These 
letters  were  shown  to  Catesby,  but  he  protested  that 
they  were  written  on  wrong  information,  and  he 
volunteered  to  send  a  special  messenger  to  Rome  to 
put  before  the  authorities  there  the  true  state  of  things. 
This  promise  satisfied  Garnet,  and  he  felt  sure  the 
matter  was  disposed  of,  at  least,  for  a  time. 

This  was  on  May  8,  1605.  On  October  26,  Catesby 
went  to  confession  to  Father  Greenwell,  or  Greenway, 
or  Texmunde,  or  Tessimond,  a  Yorkshire  man,  and 
revealed  the  whole  plot.  Greenwell  showed  his  horror 
at  the  proposition  and  forbade  him  to  entertain  it, 
but  Catesby  refused  to  be  convinced,  and  asked  him 
to  state  the  case  to  Garnet,  under  seal  of  confession,  with 
leave  to  speak  of  it  to  others,  after  the  matter,  had  be- 
come public.  This  will  explain  how  the  fact  of  the  con- 
fession came  out  in  the  trial.  Unfortunately,  Greenwell 
was  foolish  enough  to  communicate  it  to  Garnet  under 
seal  of  confession.  He  was  bitterly  reproved  for 
doing  so,  but  it  was  too  late ;  had  he  kept  it  to  himself, 
Garnet  would  not  have  died  on  the  scaffold.  On 
November  5  after  midnight,  the  plot  was  discovered, 
and  Guy  Fawkes,  who  was  guarding  the  powder  in 
the  cellar  of  the  building  where  Parliament  was  to 
meet,  was  seized,  and  acknowledged  that  the  thirty- 
five  barrels  of  powder  which  had  been  placed  there 
were  "  to  blow  the  Scottish  beggars  back  to  their 
native  mountains  " —  an  utterance  that  won  from  the 
king  the  expression:  "  Fawkes  is  the  English  Scaevola." 


160  The  Jesuits 

The  other  conspirators  had  time  to  flee,  but  were 
caught  on  November  8,  at  Holbeach  House.  They 
made  a  brief  stand,  but  in  the  fight  four  were  killed, 
among  them  Catesby.  The  others,  with  the  exception 
of  Littleton,  who,  it  would  seem,  had  betrayed  them, 
purposely  or  otherwise,  were  taken  prisoners  and 
lodged  in  the  Tower. 

"  More  than  two  months  intervened,"  says  Lingard, 
"between  the  apprehension  and  the  trial  of  the  con- 
spirators. The  ministers  had  persuaded  themselves,. 
or  wished  to  persuade  others,  that  the  Jesuit  mission- 
aries were  deeply  implicated  in  the  plot.  On  this 
account  the  prisoners  were  subjected  to  repeated 
examinations;  every  artifice  which  ingenuity  could 
devise,  both  promises  and  threats,  the  sight  of  the 
rack,  and  occasionally  the  infliction  of  torture  were 
employed  to  draw  from  them  some  avowal  which 
might  furnish  a  ground  for  the  charge;  and  in  a  pro- 
clamation issued  for  the  apprehension  of  Gerard, 
Garnet,  and  Greenway,  it  was  said  to  be  plain  and 
evident  from  the  examinations  that  all  three  had  been 
peculiarly  practisers  in  the  plot,  and  therefore  no 
less  pernicious  than  the  actors  and  counsellors  of  the 
treason." 

The  mention  of  Gerard  in  the  warrant  arose  from 
the  fact  that  two  years  previously,  namely  on  May  i, 
1604,  the  first  five  conspirators,  Catesby,  Percy, 
Wright,  Fawkes,  and  Winter,  met  "  at  a  house  in  the 
fields  beyond  St.  Clement's  Inn,  where,"  according  to 
Fawkes'  confession,  "  they  did  confer  and  agree  on  the 
plot;  and  they  took  a  solemn  oath  and  vowed  by  all 
their  force  to  execute  the  same,  and  of  secrecy  not 
to  reveal  it  to  any  of  their  fellows,  but  to  such  as 
should  be  thought  fit  persons  to  enter  into  the  action, 
and  in  the  same  house  they  did  receive  the  sacrament 
of  Gerard,  the  Jesuit,  to  perform  their  vow  and  oath 


The  English  Mission  161 

of  secrecy  aforesaid,  but  that  Gerard  was  not  acquainted 
with  their  purpose."  This  document  is  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Sir  Edward  Coke,  but  there  appear  in  the 
original  paper,  just  before  the  phrase  exculpating 
Gerard,  the  words  hue  usque  (i.  e.  up  to  this).  Coke 
read  the  passage  to  the  judges,  "up  to  this  "  but 
the  words  that  would  have  freed  Gerard  from  suspicion 
he  witheld.  "  At  length,"  continues  Lingard,  "  the 
eight  prisoners  were  arraigned.  They  all  pleaded 
not  guilty,  not,  they  wished  it  to  be  observed,  because 
they  denied  their  participation  in  the  conspiracy, 
but  because  the  indictment  contained  much  to  which 
till  that  day  they  had  been  strangers.  It  was  false 
that  the  three  Jesuits  had  been  the  authors  of  the 
conspiracy,  or  had  ever  held  consultations  with  them 
on  the  subject :  as  far  as  had  come  to  their  knowledge, 
all  three  were  innocent."  They  maintained  their  own 
right  to  do  as  they  had  done,  because  "  no  means  of 
liberation  was  left  but  the  one  they  had  adopted." 

Gerard  and  Greenwell  escaped  to  the  Continent, 
whereas  Garnet,  after  sending  a  protestation  of  his 
innocence  to  the  Council,  secreted  himself  in  the  house 
of  Thomas  Abingdon,  who  had  married  a  sister  of 
Lord  Mounteagle,  the  nobleman  who  had  first  put 
the  authorities  on  the  scent.  According  to  Jardine 
(Criminal  Trials,  67-70)  much  ingenuity  was  employed 
at  the  trial  to  prevent  Mounteagle 's  name  from  being 
called  in  question.  With  Garnet  were  Father  Oldcorne 
and  Owen,  a  lay-brother,  and  also  a  servant  named 
Chambers.  Oldcorne  was  the  chaplain  of  the  house, 
but  Hallam  in  his  "  Constitutional  History  (1-554) 
says:  "  the  damning  circumstance  against  Garnet  is 
that  he  was  taken  at  Hendlip  in  concealment,  along 
with  the  other  conspirators."  As  Oldcorne  and  the 
two  others  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  affair 
and  as  all  the  conspirators  had  been  already  shot  or 
ii 


162  The  Jesuits 

hanged,  "  the  damning  evidence"  of  perverting  the  facts 
of  the  case  is  against  Hallam. 

On  February  i,  the  Bill  of  Attainder  was  read,  and 
day  after  day,  till  March  28,  the  commissioners  visited 
the  Tower  to  elicit  evidence.  Oldcorne  was  repeatedly 
put  on  the  rack,  but  nothing  was  extorted  from  him. 
So  also  with  Owen,  Chambers  and  Johnson,  the  chief 
steward  of  the  house  where  the  priests  were  found. 
On  March  i,  after  Owen  had  been  tortured,  he  was 
told  he  would  be  stretched  on  the  rack  the  two  following 
days.  The  third  experiment  killed  him,  and  it  was 
given  out  that  "  he  had  ripped  his  belly  open  with  a 
blunt  knife."  Garnet,  when  threatened  with  the  rack, 
replied  that  "the  threat  did  not  frighten  him  —  he 
was  not  a  child." 

The  trial  was  finally  called  for  March  28.  The 
most  distinguished  lawyer  in  the  realm  at  that  time 
was  Attorney-General  Coke.  He  began  his  charge  by 
recalling  the  history  of  all  the  plots  that  had  been 
hatched  since  Elizabeth's  time;  he  declaimed  against 
Jesuitical  equivocation  and  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Pope,  and  insisted  that  all  missionaries,  and  the  Jesuits 
in  particular,  were  leagued  in  conspiracy  against  the 
king  and  his  Protestant  councillors.  But  when  he  got 
down  to  the  real  merits  of  the  indictment,  he  soon 
betrayed  the  groundlessness  of  his  charge.  Not  a  word 
did  he  say  of  the  confessions  or  the  witnesses  or  their 
dying  declarations,  although  he  had  boasted  he  would 
prove  that  Garnet  had  been  the  original  framer  of  the 
plot  and  the  confidential  adviser  of  the  conspirators. 
His  whole  charge  rested  on  his  own  assertions,  and 
was  supported  only  by  a  few  unimportant  facts, 
susceptible  of  a  very  different  interpretation  (Lingard, 
op.  cit.  IX,  63). 

Garnet  answered  that  he  had  been  debarred  from 
making  known  his  information  of  the  plot  for  the  reason 


The  English  Mission  163 

that  it  had  been  imparted  to  him  under  the  seal  of 
confession,  and  could  not  be  revealed  until  it  had 
become  public  property.  His  concealment  of  it, 
nevertheless,  was  considered  by  the  judges  as  mis- 
prision  of  treason,  and  on  that  ground,  and  not  by 
anything  adduced  by  the  attorney-general,  was  he 
condemned.  Indeed,  Coke  had  so  utterly  failed  to 
prove  his  case  that  even  Cecil  confessed  that  nothing 
had  been  produced  against  Garnet,  except  that  he 
had  been  overheard  to  say  in  conversation  with  Old- 
corne  in  the  Tower,  that  "  only  one  person  knew  of 
his  acquaintance  with  the  conspiracy."  It  is  this 
particular  feature  of  the  trial  that  has  evoked  ever 
since  a  great  deal  of  hypocritical  denunciation  of 
Garnet's  lack  of  veracity.  When  asked  if  he  had 
spoken  to  Oldcorne  or  written  to  Greenway,  he  replied 
in  the  negative;  but  it  was  proved  that  he  had  done 
both.  As  it  is  Coke  who  alleges  this  inveracity  of 
Father  Garnet,  we  may  reject  it  as  a  calumny  for 
that  same  distinguished  personage  declared  in  his 
official  report  that  Garnet,  when,  on  the  scaffold, 
admitted  his  complicity  in  the  crime,  whereas  this 
was  flatly  denied  by  those  who  were  present  at  the 
execution.  If  Coke  could  lie  about  one  thing,  he 
could  lie  about  another.  But  in  any  case  a  criminal 
court  is  not  a  confessional,  and  the  worst  offender 
can  plead  "  not  guilty  "  without  violating  the  truth. 
Garnet  was  executed  on  March  3,  1606,  but  his  body 
was  not  quartered  until  life  had  left  it. 

Gerard,  who  had  been  proscribed,  but  who  was 
perfectly  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  the  conspiracy, 
had  made  haste  to  leave  the  country.  It  was  a  difficult 
thing  to  do  but  he  finally  succeeded,  and  at  the  very 
time  that  Garnet  was  standing  on  the  scaffold,  Gerard 
was  leaving  London  as  a  footman  in  the  train  of  the 
Spanish  ambassador.  A  lay-brother  was  with  him 


164  The  Jesuits 

in  some  other  capacity.  Such  was  his  farewell  to  his 
native  country.  He  had  been  sent  there  as  a  missionary 
in  1588,  and  had  stepped  ashore  on  the  Norfolk  coast 
just  after  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  —  a  time  when 
everyone  was  hunting  for  Papists.  The  story  of  the 
adventure  of  this  handsome,  courtly  gentleman,  who 
had  three  or  four  languages  at  his  disposal,  who  was 
a  keen  sportsman,  a  skilful  horseman,  and  a  polished 
man  of  the  world,  and  was  at  ease  in  the  highest  society, 
yet  who  was  always  preaching  the  Gospel  wherever 
he  went,  in  prisons  and  even  on  the  rack,  forms  one  of 
the  most  attractive  pages  in  the  records  of  the  English 
mission.  He  died  in  Rome  at  the  age  of  seventy-three. 

During  the  trial  of  Father  Garnet,  Oldcorne  had 
been  removed  from  the  Tower  and  executed  at 
Worcester  on  April  7  or  17.  Littleton,  who  had  saved 
himself  at  the  time  of  the  conspiracy  by  informing  on 
the  others,  begged  the  father's  pardon  on  the  scaffold 
and  died  with  him.  Two  years  afterwards,  on  June 
23,  1608,  Father  Garnet's  nephew,  Thomas  was 
martyred  in  London.  He  was  then  thirty-four  years 
old,  and  had  been  only  three  years  a  Jesuit. 

After  the  execution  of  Garnet  a  much  more  drastic 
penal  code  was  enacted.  Henry  IV  of  France,  through 
his  ambassador  and  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  tried  hard 
to  restrain  the  anger  of  King  James,  but  without 
avail,  except  that  two  missionaries,  under  sentence  of 
death  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath,  were  saved  by 
the  French  king's  intercession.  He  could  not  obtain 
the  reprieve  of  Drury,  however,  who  was  condemned 
to  death  because  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Persons 
denouncing  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  found  in  his 
possession.  Whether  this  Drury  was  a  Jesuit  or  not 
cannot  be  ascertained,  for  the  "  Fasti  Breviores " 
and  the  "  Menology  "  speak  only  of  a  Drury  who  was 
killed  with  another  Jesuit  in  the  collapse  of  a  church 


The  English  Mission  165 

at  old  Blackfriars  in  1623.  James  would  not  listen  to 
the  remonstrances  of  Henry ;  he  assured  the  ambassador 
that  he  was,  by  nature,  an  enemy  of  harsh  and  cruel 
measures,  and  that  he  had  repeatedly  held  his  ministers 
in  check,  but  that  the  Catholics  were  so  infected  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  Jesuits  that  he  had  to  leave  the 
matter  to  parliament.  When  the  ambassador  remarked 
that  there  was  apparently  no  difference  of  treatment 
whether  Catholics  took  the  oath  or  not,  the  king  did 
not  reply. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JAPAN 
1555-1645 

After  Xavier's  time  —  Torres  and  Pernandes  —  Civandono  — 
Nunhes  and  Pinto  —  The  King  of  Hirando  —  First  Persecution  — 
Gago  and  Vilela  —  Almeida  —  Uprising  against  the  Emperor  — 
—  Justus  Ucondono  and  Nobunango  —  Valignani  —  Founding  of 
Nangasaki  —  Fervor  and  Fidelity  of  the  Converts  —  Embassy  to 
Europe  —  Journey  through  Portugal,  Spain  and  Italy  —  Reception  by 
Gregory  XIII  and  Sixtus  V  —  Return  to  Japan  —  The  Great  Perse- 
cutions by  Taicosama,  Daifusama,  Shogun  I  and  Shogun  II  —  Spinola 
and  other  Martyrs  —  Arrival  of  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  —  Pop- 
ular eagerness  for  death  —  Mastrilli  —  Attempts  to  establish  a  Hier- 
archy —  Closing  the  Ports  —  Discovery  of  the  Christians. 

WHEN  Francis  Xavier  bade  farewell  to  Japan  in 
1551,  he  left  behind  him  Fathers  Torres  and  Fernandes. 
They  could  not  possibly  have  sufficed  for  the  vast 
work  before  them,  and  hence,  in  August  of  the  following 
year,  Father  Gago  was  sent  with  two  companions, 
neither  of  whom  was  yet  in  Holy  Orders.  They  were 
provided  with  royal  letters  and  well  supplied  with 
presents  to  King  Civandono,  who  was  a  devoted  friend 
to  Francis  Xavier. 

The  newcomers  were  amazed  at  the  piety  of  the 
3,000  Christians,  who  were  awaiting  further  instruction. 
They  found  them  kind  and  charitable,  very  much 
given  to  corporal  austerities,  and  extremely  scrupulous 
in  matters  of  conscience  and  there  was  no  difficulty 
in  getting  enthusiastic  catechists  among  them  to 
address  the  people  and  teach  them  the  new  religion. 
As  the  belief  of  the  Japanese,  was  then,  as  it  is  today, 
Shintoism,  which  has  no  dogma,  no  moral  law, 
and  no  books,  and  is  tinctured  with  Buddhism,  the 

[166] 


Japan  167 

main  doctrine  of  which  is  the  transmigration  of 
souls,  it  was  easy  to  arouse  interest  in  a  religion  which 
presented  to  their  consideration  spiritual  doctrines,  a 
moral  law  and  sacred  books.  In  1554  there  were  1500 
baptisms  in  the  kingdom  of  Arima  alone,  though  no 
priest  had  as  yet  entered  that  part  of  the  country. 
The  feudal  system  of  government  then  prevailing 
made  conversions  easy.  Thus,  when  the  Governor  of 
Amaguchi  became  a  Christian,  more  than  three  hundred 
of  his  vassals  and  friends  immediately  followed  his 
example.  This  influence  was  still  more  in  evidence 
whenever  a  distinguished  bonze  accepted  the  Faith, 
an  example  of  which  occurred  when  the  two  most 
celebrated  personages  of  that  class  came  down  from 
Kioto  to  Amaguchi  for  a  public  disputation.  After 
the  conference  they  fell  at  the  feet  of  Torres,  and  not 
only  asked  for  baptism,  but  became  zealous  instructors 
of  the  people.  Naturally  all  the  bonzeries  of  the  Empire 
were  alarmed  and  they  rose  in  revolt  against  the 
Government  for  not  checking  these  conversions.  But 
Civandono  called  his  troops  together  to  quell  what  soon 
assumed  the  proportions  of  organized  warfare.  Indeed 
at  one  time,  the  insurgents  seemed  to  be  getting  the 
upper  hand:  but  just  as  the  king  was  on  the  point  of 
being  entrapped,  Fernandes  at  the  risk  of  his  life 
slipped  through  the  ranks  of  the  enemy  and  gave 
Civandono  information  which  won  the  victory.  After 
that  the  friendship  of  the  monarch  never  failed  his 
Christian  subjects.  He  had  ample  opportunity  to 
show  his  devotion  to  them,  for  uprisings  were  as  com- 
mon as  the  earthquakes  in  Japan,  which  were  said  to 
average  three  a  day. 

Father  Nunhes,  the  provincial,  had  been  induced  by 
the  Viceroy  of  the  Indies  to  pay  a  visit  to  Japan  at 
this  juncture,  and  he  arrived  with  Father  Vilela  and 
a  number  of  young  scholastics.  With  them  was  a 


168  The  Jesuits 

rich  Portuguese  named  Pinto,  who  had  resolved  to 
employ  most  of  his  money  in  building  a  school  in 
Civandono's  dominions.  In  order  to  help  the  scheme, 
the  viceroy  had  made  Pinto  his  ambassador.  They 
arrived  in  April,  1556,  after  a  perilous  journey,  only  to 
find  a  letter  there  from  St.  Ignatius,  reminding  Father 
Nunhes  that  provincials  had  no  business  to  undertake 
such  journeys  and  leave  their  official  work  to  others. 
However,  such  a  pressing  invitation  had  come  meantime 
from  the  King  of  Firando  or  Hirando,  as  it  is  now 
called,  and  the  chance  seemed  so  promising  for  the 
king's  conversion,  that  Father  Nunhes  presumed 
permission  to  delay  his  return  to  India.  He  was 
received  by  Civandono,  whom  he  had  to  visit  on  his 
way  to  Hirando,  with  the  same  splendid  ceremonies 
that  had  been  accorded  to  St.  Francis  Xavier;  and, 
during  a  long  conference  which  was  held  with  the  help 
of  Fernandes,  he  urged  the  king  to  become  a  Christian, 
but  Civandono  insisted  that  reasons  of  State  prevented 
him  from  doing  so  for  the  moment.  Nunhes  then  set 
out  for  Hirando,  but  fell  ill  before  he  reached  it,  and, 
in  consequence,  was  compelled  to  return  to  Goa.  As 
he  had  not  converted  a  single  idolater,  and  as  Pinto 's 
grand  plans  for  the  education  of  the  Japanese  were  a 
failure,  the  provincial  concluded  that  it  would  have 
been  wiser  to  have  remained  in  Hindostan,  where  he 
was  accomplishing  great  things,  than  to  engage  in 
apostolic  work  to  which  obedience  had  not  assigned 
him.  Pinto's  failure,  however,  was  compensated  for  by 
the  devotion  of  another  rich  man,  Louis  Almeida, 
who  had  come  with  Father  Nunhes  to  Japan.  Almeida 
being  a  physician,  immediately  set  to  work  to  build 
two  establishments  —  a  hospital  for  lepers  and  a  refuge 
for  abandoned  childern,  which  the  immorality  of  the 
Japanese  women  made  extremely  necessary.  This  was 
another  expression  of  gratitude  to  Civandono,  which 


Japan  169 

the  king  appreciated.  By  this  time  Almeida  had 
become  a  Jesuit. 

Meantime  the  King  of  Hirando,  who  had  asked  for 
Nunhes,  was  propitiated  by  having  Father  Gago  sent 
to  him.  The  missionary's  success  was  marvellous. 
Numberless  conversions  followed  his  visit,  beginning 
with  that  of  the  king  himself.  Helpers  were  sent, 
among  them  being  the  illustrious  bonze,  Paul  of  Kioto, 
whose  conversion  had  caused  a  great  stir  some  few 
years  before.  In  a  month  or  so  1400  baptisms  were 
recorded ;  but  Paul  had  reached  the  end  of  his  apostolic 
career  and  he  returned  to  die  in  the  arms  of  Father 
Torres. 

The  usual  uprising  occurred,  and  the  king  who  had 
made  so  much  ado  about  calling  Father  Nunhes 
turned  out  to  be  a  very  weak-kneed  Christian. 
Churches  were  destroyed,  crosses  desecrated,  and  other 
outrages  committed,  but  he  did  nothing  to  quell  the 
disturbance.  Political  reasons,  he  alleged,  prevented 
him.  It  was  in  this  outbreak  that  the  first  martyrdom 
occurred,  that  of  a  poor  slave-woman  who  had  been 
accustomed  to  pray  before  a  cross  erected  outside  the 
city.  She  had  been  warned  that  it  was  as  much  as 
her  life  was  worth  to  declare  her  Christianity  so  openly; 
she  persisted,  nevertheless,  and  was  killed  as  she 
knelt  down  in  the  roadway  to  receive  the  blow 'of  the 
executioner's  sword.  Even  Father  Gago  himself  came 
near  falling  a  victim  to  the  popular  fury.  In  view  of 
subsequent  events,  if  they  were  as  reported,  it  is  to 
be  regretted  that  he  missed  the  opportunity  of  winning 
the  crown. 

The  first  Jesuit  who  reached  Kioto  and  remained 
there  was  Vilela.  He  had  travelled  a  long  distance 
to  visit  a  famous  bonzery  to  which  he  had  been  invited; 
and  then,  finding  himself  not  far  away  from  the  imperial 
city,  he  determined  to  present  himself  to  the  emperor, 


170  The  Jesuits 

or  Mikado  as  he  was  called.  His  method  of  approach- 
ing that  great  potentate  amazed  the  onlookers  by  its 
novelty.  Holding  his  cross  high  in  the  air,  he  pro- 
claimed his  purpose  in  coming  to  Japan.  To  the 
surprise  of  every  one,  the  Mikado  seemed  extremely 
pleased;  but  that  alarmed  the  bonzes,  and  they  accused 
Vilela  of  all  sorts  of  crimes,  not  excluding  cannibalism. 
Indeed,  they  had  seen  great  pieces  of  human  flesh  at 
Vilela's  house,  they  said.  To  stop  their  clamors,  the 
Mikado  finally  consented  to  a  public  debate,  doing  so 
with  great  apprehension,  however,  for  Vilela's  success. 
The  discussion  took  place,  but,  if  the  metempsychosis 
set  forth  by  their  spokesman  on  that  occasion,  repre- 
sented the  popular  creed,  one  is  forced  to  say  that  the 
Japanese  mentality  of  that  period  was  not  of  a  very 
superior  character.  Vilela's  easy  victory  gave  him  the 
right  to  preach  everywhere  in  the  Empire;  and  the 
number  of  converts  was  so  great  that  many  missionaries 
were  needed  to  help  him. 

Father  Gago,  who  had  missed  the  chance  of 
martyrdom  a  short  time  before,  was  looked  upon  as 
the  man  for  the  emergency.  Francis  Xavier  had 
chosen  him  expressly  for  Japan ;  his  facility  in  learning 
the  language  was  marvellous;  his  piety  was  admitted 
by  all;  his  zeal  knew  no  bounds,  and  his  success  cor- 
responded with  his  efforts.  Indeed,  he  was  almost 
adored  wherever  he  went;  but  suddenly,  just  as  he 
was  needed  he  appeared  to  be  a  changed  man.  His 
energy,  his  zeal,  his  enthusiasm  had  all  evaporated. 
There  was,  absolutely,  nothing  amiss  in  his  conduct  — 
not  even  a  suspicion  suggested  itself.  But  he  wanted 
to  give  up  his  work;  and  to  the  dismay  of  his  associates 
he  returned  to  Goa.  He  was  nearly  shipwrecked  on  his 
way,  but  that  resulted  only  in  a  temporary  revival  of 
his  fervor.  He  was  sent  to  Salsette  and  was  taken 
prisoner  but  was  subsequently  released.  He  was  never 


Japan  171 

again,  however,  the  man  that  he  had  been  in  the 
beginning  of  his  career.  "  I  have  enlarged  on  this," 
says  Charlevoix,  "for  I  am  writing  a  history  and  not 
a  panegyric."  The  "  Menology  "  of  Portugal,  however, 
assails  both  Charlevoix  and  Bartoli  for  this  charge,  but 
the  defence  lacks  explicitness. 

From  Kioto,  Vilela  went  to  Sacai,  which  was  an 
independent  city  —  republican  in  its  administration, 
but  in  its  rule  as  tyrannical  as  Venice  was  about  that 
time.  Over  and  above  that,  it  was  grossly  immoral, 
and  only  one  family  in  it  would  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  missionary.  So  he  shook  its  dust  from  his 
feet  and  went  elsewhere. 

Almeida,  the  physician,  distinguished  himself  in  his 
missionary  journeys  at  this  time,  and  he  tells  how  he 
came  across  a  whole  community  of  people  in  a  secluded 
district  who  had  seen  a  priest  only  once  in  passing, 
yet  had  remembered  all  that  had  been  told  them,  and 
were  keeping  the  commandments  as  well  as  they  knew 
how.  He  baptized  them  all,  and  leaving  them  capable 
catechists,  one  of  whom  had  written  a  book  about 
Christianity,  he  continued  on  his  way,  hunting  for 
more  souls  to  save.  It  was  largely  due  to  him  that 
some  of  the  reigning  princes  were  gained  over.  One  of 
them,  Sumitanda  by  name,  had  distinguished  himself 
by  throwing  down  a  famous  idol,  called  the  God  of 
War,  just  at  the  moment  the  army  was  going  into 
battle.  As  the  fight  was  won,  most  of  the  soldiers  not 
only  became  Christians,  but,  later  on,  when  Sumitanda 
found  himself  attacked  by  two  kings  who  resented  his 
conversion,  a  great  number  of  his  men  fastened  crosses 
on  their  armor  and  swept  the  enemy  from  the  field. 

Meantime  a  revolution  had  broken  out  at  Kioto 
against  the  Mikado;  he  was  besieged  in  his  citadel, 
but  finally  succeeded  in  beating  back  the  foe.  When 
£eace  was  restored  in  1562  Vilela  returned  to  the 


172  The  Jesuits 

capital;  and  multitudes,  not  only  of  the  people,  but 
many  princes  of  the  blood  and  distinguished  nobles, 
made  a  public  profession  of  Christianity.  This  again 
brought  the  bonzes  to  the  fore,  and  as  a  prelude  to  a 
decree  of  expulsion  of  the  missionaries,  they  succeeded 
in  having  two  of  the  most  influential  men  of  the  king- 
dom, both  bitter  pagans,  constituted  as  a  commission 
to  examine  into  the  new  teachings.  So  convinced  was 
everyone  that  it  was  only  the  beginning  of  a  process 
of  extermination  that  Vilela  was  advised  to  withdraw 
from  the  capital.  He  acquiesced,  much  against  his 
will;  but  it  happened  that  two  of  his  Christians  of  the 
humbler  class  so  astounded  the  inquisitors  by  their 
answers  that  both  of  the  great  men  asked  for  baptism. 
A  discourse  of  Vilela  gained  another  convert  in  the 
person  of  the  father  of  a  man  who  became  famous  in 
those  days  of  Japanese  history  —  Justus  Ucondono. 

In  1565  the  missionaries  were  treated  with  special 
consideration  by  the  Mikado,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
splendid  court  ceremonies  which  marked  the  opening 
of  the  new  year.  The  whole  nation  was  astounded  at 
the  unprecedented  favor,  but  as  usual  it  was  only  the 
prelude  of  a  storm.  In  the  following  year  the  Mikado 
was  murdered;  and  all  his  adherents  were  either  put 
to  the  sword  or  expelled  from  the  capital.  This  was 
the  first  act  of  a  tragedy  that  would  make  a  theme 
for  a  Shakespeare.  It  is  as  follows :  The  successful 
rebels  had  placed  the  younger  brother  of  the  emperor 
on  the  throne,  but  fearing  a  similar  fate,  he  had  fled 
to  the  castle  of  the  distinguished  soldier,  Vatadono, 
who,  finding  himself  not  strong  enough  to  maintain 
the  claim  of  the  fugitive  monarch,  induced  the  ablest 
military  man  of  Japan,  Nobunaga,  the  King  of  Boari, 
to  take  up  the  cause  of  their  sovereign.  The  offer 
was  accepted;  two  bloody  battles  followed;  the 
insurgents  were  cut  to  pieces,  and  the  young  emperor, 


Japan  173 

under  the  name  of  Cubosama,  was  enthroned  at  Kioto. 
The  palace,  which  had  been  wrecked  in  the  war,  was 
replaced  by  a  new  one,  built  of  the  stones  of  the 
bonzeries  and  the  statues  of  the  national  idols.  The 
two  conquerors  then  made  haste  to  show  their  esteem 
for  the  missionaries  and  assured  them  of  protection; 
Nobunaga  withdrew  to  his  kingdom  when  the  work 
was  completed,  and  Vatadono,  his  lieutenant,  remained 
as  viceroy  at  Kioto.  All  these  events  occurred  in  the 
single  year  of  1568. 

Just  then  the  illustrious  Alexander  Valignani,  the 
greatest  man  of  the  missions  in  the  East  after  Francis 
Xavier,  came  on  the  scene.  For  thirty-two  years  all 
his  efforts  were  directed  to  shaping  and  guiding  the 
various  posts  of  the  vast  field  of  apostolic  work  in 
this  new  part  of  the  world,  his  success  being  marvellous. 
He  was  born  at  Chieti.  The  close  friendship  of  his 
father  with  Pope  Paul  IV  made  the  highest  offices 
of  the  Church  attainable  if  he  chose  to  aspire  to  them; 
but  he  left  the  papal  court,  and  was  received  into  the 
Society  by  Francis  Borgia,  beginning  his  life  as  a 
Jesuit  by  the  practice  of  terrible  bodily  mortifications, 
which  he  continued  until  the  end  of  his  career.  He 
was  chosen  by  Mercurian  to  be  visitor  to  the  Indies; 
thirty-two  companions  were  given  him,  and  he  was 
authorized  to  select  eight  more,  wherever  he  might 
find  them. 

At  that  time  Japan  had  only  twenty  missionaries, 
while  there  were  none  at  all  in  China.  When  Valignani 
died,  there  were  in  the  empire  of  Japan  one  hundred 
and  fifty  Jesuits  and  six  hundred  catechists,  who  in  spite 
of  wars  and  persecutions  had  three  hundred  churches 
and  thirty-one  places  for  the  missionaries  to  assemble. 
There  were  a  novitiate,  a  house  of  theological  and 
philosophical  studies,  two  colleges  where  the  Japanese 
nobles  sent  their  sons,  besides  a  printing  establishment, 


174  The  Jesuits 

two  schools  of  music  and  painting,  multitudes  of 
sodalities,  schools,  and  finally,  hospitals  for  every  kind 
of  human  suffering,  and  when  the  persecutions  began, 
he  had  resources  enough  at  his  disposal  to  provide  for 
nine  hundred  exiled  Japanese.  Finally,  it  was  his 
guidance  and  help  that  enabled  Matteo  Ricci  to 
plant  the  cross  in  the  two  capitals  of  China.  He 
wielded  such  an  influence  over  the  terrible  Taicosama 
that  it  was  a  common  saying  in  the  empire  that  if 
Father  Alexander  had  survived,  the  Church  of  Japan 
would  never  have  succumbed.  There  was  great 
rejoicing  when  his  arrival  was  announced.  The  ship 
which  brought  him  to  port  had  not  dropped  anchor, 
before  it  was  surrounded  by  hundreds  of  boats  filled 
with  Christians,  all  of  them  carrying  flags  on  which 
a  cross  was  painted.  When  he  approached  the  city, 
throngs  of  people  came  out  to  meet  him,  some  kissing 
his  robe,  others  his  hands,  others  his  feet,  and  a  long 
procession  led  him  in  triumph  to  the  Church,  where 
a  Te  Deum  was  sung  to  thank  God  for  his  coming. 
In  that  year,  Nagasaki,  which  was  afterwards  to 
furnish  so  many  matryrs  to  the  faith,  suddenly  de- 
veloped from  an  inconspicuous  village  to  a  great  city, 
because  of  the  number  of  Christians  who  had  settled 
there.  A  great  sorrow,  however,  just  then  fell  on  the 
Church;  Fernandes,  one  of  the  missionaries  whom 
Xavier  had  left  behind  him  in  Japan,  had  died.  Torres 
still  remained,  indeed,  but  he  also  was  to  end  his 
glorious  career  in  a  year  or  two.  However,  they  had 
built  up  a  splendid  Church;  and  under  such  conditions 
the  work  of  evangelization  could  not  fail  to  proceed 
rapidly.  Indeed,  the  records  of  that  period  teem 
with  accounts  of  conversions  of  princes  and  entire 
populations;  and  when  Cabral  arrived  as  superior  in 
place  of  Torres,  the  emperor  gave  the  missionaries  his 
protection,  in  spite  of  the  unrelenting  opposition  of 


Japan  175 

the  bonzes,  who  still  exercised  a  preponderating 
influence  at  Court.  In  one  of  the  provinces,  Cabral, 
in  his  official  visitations,  found  a  very  remarkable 
evidence  of  solidity  in  the  faith.  No  priest  had  been 
there  for  ten  years;  yet  a  beautiful  church  had  been 
erected  and  a  fervent  congregation  filled  it  continually. 
In  another  place  where  the  constant  wars  in  which 
the  ruler  was  engaged  and  the  carnage  which  he  had 
committed  in  conquering  the  territory  had  kept  out  the 
missionaries  for  at  least  twenty  years,  thanks  to  an 
old  blind  man  named  Tobias  whom  St.  Francis  Xavier 
had  baptized  and  named,  all  the  people  who  were  left 
in  the  vicinity  were  thoroughly  instructed  in  their 
Faith. 

Meantime  a  new  historical  drama  was  being  enacted, 
which  was  more  marvellous  than  the  first.  The  weak 
character  of  Cubosama  had  made  him  the  victim  of  the 
bonzes,  whom  he  heartily  detested.  They  had  also 
succeeded  in  disrupting  the  friendship  of  Vatadono  and 
Nobunaga.  Fortunately,  the  two  friends  were  recon- 
ciled in  time,  but  that  gave  rise  to  a  counter  movement 
to  destroy  them.  War  was  declared  on  some  pretext 
or  other,  and  in  one  of  the  first  engagements  Vatadono 
was  killed.  It  was  a  sad  blow  for  the  missionaries, 
for  the  hero  was  a  catechumen  and  was  waiting  to  be 
baptized.  Left  alone  now  and  supposed  to  be  unable 
to  defend  himself,  Nobunaga  was  more  fiercely  assailed 
than  ever  by  the  bonzes.  Wearied  of  it  all,  he  called 
his  troops  together  and  set  out  for  Kioto.  His  enemies 
fled  before  him.  He  took  the  city  and  set  it  on  fire, 
and  then,  not  because  he  was  actuated  by  motives  of 
personal  ambition,  but  because  he  saw  that  if  Cubosama 
was  allowed  to  rule  the  state  of  warfare  would  continue, 
he  locked  up  the  feeble  monarch  in  a  fortress,  and 
constituted  himself  supreme  military  commander  or 
Shogun.  It  was  then  that  Civandono,  King  of  Bungo, 


176  The  Jesuits 

the  original  friend  of  Francis  Xavier,  became  a  Christian 
and  took  the  name  of  Francis;  furthermore  he  built 
a  city  in  which  only  Christians  were  allowed  to  live. 
There  he  passed  the  rest  of  his  days  an  example  of 
piety  to  all. 

Meantime,  Nobunaga  continued  to  shower 
favors  on  the  missionaries.  He  built  a  new  and 
splendid  city,  and  in  the  best  part  of  it  founded  a  college 
and  a  seminary.  Christianity  made  great  strides  under 
his  administration,  as  he  was  the  deadly  enemy  of  the 
bonzes  who  for  years  had  endeavored  to  compass  his 
ruin.  Nevertheless,  though  he  listened  with  interest 
and  pleasure  to  explanations  of  the  creed,  and  asked 
the  missionaries,  half  roguishly,  if  they  really  believed 
all  they  said,  and  if  they  were  not  as  bad  as  the  bonzes, 
he  went  no  further. 

In  the  first  years  of  Nobunaga's  rule,  Valignani 
conceived  the  idea  of  having  a  solemn  embassy  sent  by 
the  various  Christian  kings  of  the  country,  to  pay  their 
homage  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  in  the  Eternal  City. 
It  was  riot  an  imperial  delegation,  but  was  restricted 
to  the  three  devout  rulers  of  Bungo,  Arima  and 
Omura.  Nobunaga  willingly  gave  his  consent,  and  the. 
ambassadors  left  Nagasaki  on  February  22,  1582,  and 
repaired  to  Kioto.  From  there  they  went  by  the  way  of 
Malacca  to  Goa.  On  this  part  of  the  journey  they 
were  frequently  in  imminent  danger  of  shipwreck,  but 
they  arrived  safely  in  Goa  at  the  beginning  of  1583. 
There  they  were  received  with  great  ceremony  by  the 
Viceroy,  Mascaregnas,  who  entertained  them  for  several 
months.  Valignani,  who  had  conducted  them  thus  far, 
returned  to  Japan  after  putting  them  in  the  hands 
of  Fathers  Mesquita  and  Rodrigues,  who  remained 
with  them  till  they  reached  Rome. 

They   set   sail   at   the   end   of   February,   and   on 
August  10  dropped  anchor  in  the  Tagus.     Charlevoix 


Japan  177 

remarks  that  "  this  part  of  the  journey  was  not  long," 
though  it  was  nearly  six  months  in  duration.  The 
prince  cardinal  who  was  at  that  time  Viceroy  of  Portugal 
showered  honors  upon  them,  and  made  them  his  guests 
in  the  royal  palace  for  an  entire  month.  They  then 
visited  the  principal  cities  of  Portugal.  Nothing  was 
too  much  for  them  in  the  way  of  honor  and  even  in 
the  way  of  money.  Finally  they  were  conducted  to 
Madrid  and  had  a  public  audience  with  Philip  II,  to 
whom  they  presented  their  credentials  and  offered  the 
presents  of  the  Christians  of  Japan  and  their  expression 
of  gratitude  for  all  that  his  majesty  had  done  for  the 
infant  Church  of  their  country.  Philip  is  said  to  have 
embraced  them  affectionately,  assuring  them  of  the 
great  regard  he  had  for  the  kings  whom  they  repre- 
sented. The  Queen  Maria  put  her  carriages  at  their 
disposal,  and  on  the  following  day  they  were  conducted 
to  the  Escorial  where  they  received  the  congratulations 
of  the  princes  and  grandees  of  Spain.  The  French 
ambassador  also  paid  them  a  ceremonious  visit.  Even 
the  king  himself  called  upon  them  and  had  a  vessel 
equipped  at  Alicante  to  conduct  them  to  Italy.  They 
left  Madrid  on  November  26,  and  were  received  with 
almost  royal  honors  in  every  city  on  their  way.  It  was 
already  January,  1585,  when  they  left  Spain.  The 
Mediterranean  treated  them  badly;  and  it  was  only  in 
the  month  of  March  that  they  stepped  ashore  at 
Leghorn,  amid  the  salvos  of  artillery  from  the  fort. 
The  carriages  of  the  grand  duke  carried  them  on  their 
journey  to  Pisa.  There  the  prince  and  all  his  court 
were  waiting^to  receive  them,  and  led  them  to  the 
palace,  where  a  splendid  banquet  was  prepared,  after 
which  Pietro  de'  Medici  and  the  grand  duke  came  to 
pay  them  their  respects. 

They  saw  the  carnival  at  Pisa,  and  then  journeyed 
on  to  Florence,  where  the  papal  nuncio  and  the  cardinal 
12 


178  The  Jesuits 

archbishop,  who  was  afterwards  Pope  Leo  XI,  bade 
them  welcome.  From  there  they  passed  to  Siena, 
where,  as  guests  of  the  Pope,  they  were  met  at  the 
frontier  by  two  hundred  arquebusiers  sent  by  the 
vice-legate  of  Viterbo  to  show  them  special  honor. 
Gregory  XIII  was  then  on  the  Pontifical  throne;  and 
feeling  that  his  end  was  approaching,  he  sent  a  company 
of  light  horse  to  hasten  their  coming.  It  was  Friday, 
March  20,  1585,  when  they  entered  Rome,  and  their 
first  visit  was  to  Father  Aquaviva,  who  was  then 
General  of  the  Society.  He  led  them  to  the  church, 
where  a  Te  Deum  was  sung;  and  on  the  following  day 
the  Pope  held  a  consistory  which  ordered  that  the 
envoys  should  be  regarded  as  royal  ambassadors;  that 
their  reception  should  be  as  splendid  as  possible;  and 
that  their  first  audience  should  be  at  the  full  consistory 
in  the  papal  palace. 

On  the  day  appointed  for  the  solemn  entry,  March  23, 
the  Spanish  ambassador  sent  his  carriages  to  convey 
the  visitors  to  the  villa  of  the  Pope;  and  then  with  the 
papal  light  horse  at  the  head,  followed  by  the  Swiss 
guards,  the  cardinalitial  officials  and  the  ambassadors 
of  Spain  and  Venice,  with  their  pages  and  officers  and 
trumpeters  and  all  the  papal  household  in  their  purple 
robes,  the  delegates  proceeded  to  the  City.  The 
Japanese  were  on  horseback  and  wore  the  costume  of 
their  country;  princes  and  archbishops  rode  on  either 
side,  and  followed  by  Father  Diego,  who  acted  as 
interpreter.  A  throng  of  mounted  cavaliers  in  gorgeous 
apparel  closed  the  pageant.  The  whole  city  turned  out 
to  receive  them.  The  streets  were  crowded  with 
people,  as  were  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  all  observing  a 
reverential  silence,  interrupted  only  by  the  blast  of  the 
trumpets  or  the  occasional  but  enthusiastic  acclama- 
tions of  the  multitude.  When  the  bridge  of  Castle 
Sant'  Angelo  was  reached,  the  cannon  boomed  out  a 


Japan  179 

welcome  which  was  repeated  by  the  guns  of  the  papal 
palace  and  taken  up  by  strains  of  musical  instruments 
that  resounded  from  every  quarter  as  the  envoys 
approached  the  palace. 

So  great  was  the  throng  of  cardinals  and  prelates  in 
the  hall  that  the  Swiss  guards  had  to  force  their  way 
through  it,  to  conduct  the  Pontiff  to  his  throne.  When 
he  was  seated  the  ambassadors  approached,  holding 
their  credentials  in  their  hands;  and  then,  kneeling  at 
the  feet  of  the  Pope,  they  announced  in  a  clear  and 
loud  voice  that  they  had  come  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth  to  see  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ  and  to  offer  him 
the  homage  of  the  princes  whose  envoys  they  were. 
Tears  flowed  down  the  cheeks  of  the  Pontiff  as  he 
lifted  the  envoys  up  and  embraced  them  tenderly, 
again  and  again,  with  an  affection  they  never  forgot. 
They  were  then  conducted  to  a  raised  platform;  and 
the  secretary  of  the  Pope  read  aloud  the  letters,  which 
they  had  brought.  When  that  was  concluded,  Father 
Gonzales  explained  at  length  the  purpose  of  their 
mission,  and  a  bishop  replied  in  the  name  of  His 
Holiness.  The  second  kissing  of  the  feet  was  next  in 
order,  and  the  cardinals  crowded  around  the  wondering 
Japanese  to  ask  them  numberless  questions  about  their 
country  and  the  events  of  their  voyage,  to  all  of  which 
replies -were  given  with  a  refinement  and  courtesy  that 
charmed  all  who  heard  them.  The  session  was  now 
ended,  and  rising  from  his  throne,  the  Pope  withdrew, 
giving  to  the  visitors  the  honor,  conferred  only  on  the 
imperial  ambassadors,  of  bearing  the  papal  train.  They 
were  then  entertained  at  a  sumptuous  banquet. 

Private  interviews  with  the  Pope  followed ;  and  after 
receptions  by  various  dignitaries,  at  some  of  which  the 
Japanese  wore  their  national  dress,  at  others  appearing 
in  the  Italian  apparel,  the  Pope  gave  them  expensive 
robes,  which  they  wore  with  an  ease  and  grace  that 


180  The  Jesuits 

was  amazing  for  men  so  unaccustomed  to  such  surround- 
ings and  ceremonies.  When  they  went  to  offer  their 
prayers  at  the  seven  churches  they  were  received 
processionally  at  each  of  them,  the  bells  ringing  and 
organs  playing.  Meantime  physicians  were  sending 
hourly  bulletins  to  His  Holiness,  who  was  deeply 
concerned  about  one  of  the  envoys  who  had  been 
debarred  from  all  these  ceremonies  by  an  attack  of 
sickness.  The  invalid,  however,  did  not  die,  but, 
later  on,  in  his  native  country,  gave  his  life  for  the 
Faith. 

Indeed  it  was  the  Pope  himself  who  died  a  few  days 
after  these  pageants.  He  was  ill  only  a  few  days,  but 
in  his  very  last  moments  he  was  making  inquiries  about 
the  sick  man  from  the  Far  East.  He  departed  this 
life  on  April  10,  and  on  the  2$th  Sixtus  V  mounted 
the  throne.  Before  his  election  he  had  been  most 
effusive  in  his  attention  to  the  Japanese,  and  was  more 
so  after  his  election,  even  giving  them  precedence  over 
cardinals,  when  there  was  question  of  an  audience. 
They  assisted  at  his  coronation,  served  as  acolytes  at 
his  Mass,  and  were  guests  at  a  banquet  in  his  villa. 
He  even  decorated  them  as  knights,  and  when  they 
had  been  belted  and  spurred  by  the  ambassadors  of 
France  and  Venice,  he  hung  rich  gold  chains  and  medals 
on  their  necks,  lifted  them  up  and  kissed  them  and 
gave  them  communion  at  his  private  Mass.  He  sent 
letters  and  presents  to  the  kings  they  represented,  and 
the  ambassadors  themselves  were  recipients  of  rich 
rewards  from  the  generous  Pontiff. 

Finally,  they  were  made  patricians  by  the  Senate, 
which  assembled  at  the  Capitol  for  that  purpose;  and 
were  given  letters  patent  with  a  massive  gold  seal 
attached.  They  then  bade  farewell  to  the  Pope,  who 
defrayed  all  the  expenses  of  their  journey  to  Lisbon. 
Invitations  were  extended  to  them  from  other  sovereigns 


Japan  181 

of  Europe,  but  it  was  impossible  to  accept  them,  and 
they  left  Rome  on  June  3,  1585,  conducted  a  consider- 
able distance  by  the  light  horse  and  numbers  of  the 
nobility.  At  Spoleto,  Assisi,  Montefalcono,  Perugia, 
Bologna,  Ferrara  and  elsewhere,  every  honor  was  given 
them.  As  they  approached  Venice,  for  instance,  forty 
red-robed  senators  received  them  and  accompanied 
them  up  the  Grand  Canal  in  a  vessel  that  was  usually 
kept  for  the  use  of  kings.  Every  gondola  of  the  city 
followed  in  their  wake;  the  patriarch  and  all  the 
nobility  visited  them;  and  they  were  then  conducted 
to  the  palace  of  the  Doge,  where  the  attendant 
senators  accorded  them  the  first  places  in  the  assembly. 
Tintoretto  painted  their  portraits,  and  they  were  shown 
tapestries  on  which  their  reception  by  the  Pope  had 
been  already  represented.  A  hundred  pieces  of  artillery 
welcomed  them  to  Mantua;  the  city  was  illuminated 
and  the  people  knelt  in  the  street  to  show  their  venera- 
tion for  these  new  children  of  the  Faith  from  the  Far 
East.  They  even  stood  sponsors  at  the  baptism  of  a 
Jewish  rabbi.  It  was  the  same  story  at  Milan  and 
Cremona.  They  approached  Genoa  by  sea,  and  galleys 
were  sent  out  to  convoy  them  to  the  city.  Leaving 
there  on  August  8  they  reached  Barcelona  on  the  iyth. 
At  Moncon  they  again  saw  Philip  II  who  had  a  vessel 
specially  equipped  for  them  at  Lisbon;  he  lavished 
money  and  presents  on  them,  and  gave  orders  to  the 
Viceroy  of  India  to  provide  them  with  everything  they 
wished  till  they  reached  Japan.  They  finally  left 
Lisbon  on  April  30,  1586.  During  their  stay  in  Europe 
they  had  the  happiness  of  meeting  St.  Aloysius  Gonzaga, 
who  was  then  a  novice  in  the  Society. 

The  splendor  of  these  European  courts  must  have 
dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  dark-skinned  sons  of  the  East 
as  they  journeyed  through  Portugal,  Italy  and  Spain; 
but  they  were  probably  not  aware  of  the  tragedies  that 


182  The  Jesuits 

were  enacted  near-by  in  the  dominions  of  the  Most 
Christian  King,  where  Catholics  and  Huguenots  were 
at  each  other's  throats;  nor  did  they  know  of  the 
fratricidal  struggles  in  Germany  that  were  leading  up 
to  the  Thirty  Years  War,  which  was  to  make  Christian 
Europe  a  desert ;  nor  of  the  fury  of  Elizabeth  who  was 
at  that  very  time  putting  to  death  the  brothers  of  the 
Jesuits  whom  they  so  deeply  revered.  The  revolutions, 
assassinations  and  sacrileges  committed  all  through 
those  countries  would  have  been  startling  revelations 
of  the  depths  to  which  Christian  nations  could  descend. 
However,  they  may  have  been  informed  of  it  all,  and 
could  thus  understand  more  easily  the  remorseless 
cruelty  of  their  own  pagan  rulers  whose  victims  they 
were  so  soon  to  be. 

Cubosama,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  kind  to  the 
Christians,  and  Nobunaga  had  welcomed  the  priests 
to  his  palace  and  found  pleasure  in  their  conversations. 
He  had  given  them  a  place  in  the  beautiful  city  he 
built;  but  in  reality  he  doubted  the  sincerity  of  their 
belief  just  as  he  disbelieved  the  teaching  of  the  bonzes. 
In  default  of  another  deity,  he  had  begun  to  worship 
himself,  and,  like,  Nabuchodonosor  of  old,  he  finally 
exacted  divine  honors  from  his  subjects.  Such  an 
attitude  of  mind  naturally  led  to  cruelty,  and  in  1586 
he  was  murdered  by  one  of  his  trusted  officials  who,  in 
turn,  perished  in  battle  when  Ucondono,  the  Christian 
commander  of  the  imperial  armies,  overthrew  him. 
Unwisely,  perhaps,  Ucondono  did  not  assume  the  office 
of  protector  of  the  young  son  of  Nobunaga,  but  left 
it  to  a  man  of  base  extraction,  the  terrible  Taicosama, 
who  quickly  became  the  Shogun.  At  first  he  protected 
the  Christians,  made  the  provincial,  Coelho,  his  friend 
and  permitted  the  Faith  to  be  preached  throughout 
the  empire.  The  chief  officers  of  his  army  and  navy 
were  avowed  believers. 


Japan  183 

Three  years  passed  and  the  number  of  neophytes 
had  doubled.  There  were  now  300,000  Christians  in 
Japan  —  among  them  kings  and  princes,  and  the  three 
principal  ministers  of  the  empire.  But  it  happened 
that,  in  the  year  1589  two  Christian  women  had 
refused  to  become  inmates  of  Taicosama's  harem, 
and  that  turned  him  into  a  terrible  persecutor. 
Ucondono  was  deprived  of  his  office  and  sent  into 
exile;  Father  Coelho  was  forbidden  to  preach  in 
public,  and  the  other  Jesuits  were  to  withdraw  from 
the  country  within  twenty  days,  while  every  convert 
was  ordered  to  abjure  Christianity.  The  two  hundred 
and  forty  churches  were  to  be  burned.  The  recreant 
son  of  the  famous  old  king  of  Bungo  gave  the  first 
notable  example  of  apostasy,  but,  as  often  happens  in 
such  circumstances,  the  persecution  itself  won  thousands 
of  converts  who,  up  to  that,  had  hesitated  about 
renouncing  their  idols.  At  this  juncture,  Father 
Valignani  appeared  as  ambassador  of  the  Viceroy  of 
the  Indies,  and  in  that  capacity  was  received  with 
royal  magnificence  by  Taicosama.  But  the  bonzes, 
who  had  now  regained  their  influence  over  the  emperor, 
assured  him  that  the  embassy  was  only  a  device  to 
evade  the  law,  and,  hence,  though  he  accepted  the 
presents,  he  did  not  relent  in  his  opposition;  yet  in 
his  futile  expedition  against  China  two  Jesuits  accom- 
panied the  troops. 

Blood  was  first  shed  in  the  kingdom  of  Hirando. 
Fathers  Carrioni  and  Mattel  were  poisoned,  and 
Carvalho  and  Furnaletto,  who  took  their  places,  met 
the  same  fate.  A  fifth,  whose  name  is  lost,  was  killed 
in  a  similar  fashion.  Unfortunately,  the  Spanish 
merchants  in  the  Philippines  just  at  that  time  induced 
the  Franciscan  missionaries  of  those  islands  to  go  over 
to  Japan,  for  the  rumor  had  got  abroad  that  the  Jesuits 
in  Japan  had  been  wholly  exterminated,  although  there 


184  The  Jesuits 

were  still,  in  reality,  twenty-six  of  them  in  the  country. 
It  is  true  they  were  not  in  evidence  as  formerly,  for 
with  the  exception  of  the  two  army  chaplains,  they  were 
exercising  their  ministry  secretly.  Of  that,  however, 
the  Spaniards  were  not  aware  and  probably  spoke  in 
good  faith.  The  Franciscans,  on  arriving,  discovered 
that  they  had  been  duped  in  believing  that  the  persecu- 
tion was  prompted  by  dislike  of  the  Jesuits'  personality, 
some  of  whom  no  doubt  they  met.  Nevertheless,  they 
determined  to  remain,  and  Taicosama  permitted  them 
to  do  so,  because  of  the  letters  they  carried  from  the 
Governor  of  the  Philippines,  who  expressed  a  desire 
of  becoming  Taicosama's  vassal.  Meantime,  a  Spanish 
captain  whose  vessel  had  been  wrecked  on  the  coast 
had  foolishly  said  that  the  sending  of  missionaries  to 
Japan  was  only  a  device  to  prepare  for  a  Portuguese 
and  Spanish  invasion.  Possibly  he  spoke  in  jest,  but 
his  words  were  reported  to  Taicosama,  with  the  result 
that  on  February  5,  1597,  six  Franciscans  and  three 
Jesuits  were  hanging  on  crosses  at  Nagasaki.  The 
Jesuits  were  Paul  Miki,  James  Kisai,  and  John  de  Goto, 
all  three  Japanese.  On  the  same  day  a  general  decree 
of  banishment  was  issued. 

Just  then  Valignani,  who  had  withdrawn,  returned 
to  Japan  with  nine  more  Jesuits  and  the  coadjutor 
of  the  first  bishop  of  Japan  —  the  bishop  having  died 
on  the  way  out.  Valignani,  who  was  personally  very 
acceptable  to  Taicosama,  was  cordially  received  and 
the  storm  ceased  momentarily;  but  unfortunately, 
Taicosama  died  a  year  afterwards  and,  strange  to  say, 
two  Jesuit  priests,  Rodrigues  and  Organtini,  who  had 
won  his  affection,  were  with  him  when  he  breathed  his 
last,  but  they  failed  to  make  any  impression  on  his 
mind  or  heart.  He  left  a  son,  and  Daifusama  became 
regent  or  Shogun.  Fortunately,  Valignani  had  some 
success  in  convincing  him  that  to  establish  himself 


Japan  185 

firmly  on  his  throne  it  would  be  wise  to  extend  his 
protection  to  his  Christian  subjects.  Moreover,  the 
King  of  Hirando,  though  at  first  bent  on  continuing 
the  persecution,  was  constrained  by  the  threatening 
attitude  of  his  Christian  subjects,  who  were  very 
numerous  and  very  powerful  in  his  kingdom,  to  desist 
from  his  purpose,  at  least  for  a  while.  Probably  he 
was  assisted  in  this  resolution  by  the  fact  that  in  the 
first  year  after  the  outburst,  namely  in  1599,  seventy 
thousand  more  Japanese  had  asked  for  baptism. 
In  1603  there  were  10,000  conversions  in  the  single 
principality  of  Fingo. 

Father  Organtini  succeeded  in  getting  quite  close 
to  Daifusama  who,  to  strengthen  himself  politically, 
allowed  the  churches  to  be  rebuilt  in  the  empire  and 
even  in  Kioto.  Unfortunately,  however,  in  1605  he 
heard  that  Spain  was  sending  out  a  number  of  war 
vessels  to  subjugate  the  Moluccas,  and  fancying  that 
its  objective  was  really  Japan,  he  gave  orders  to  the 
Governor  of  Nagasaki  to  allow  no  Spanish  ships  to 
enter  the  harbor.  To  make  matters  worse,  it  happened 
that  Valignani,  who  exercised  an  extraordinary  influence 
on  Daifusama,  was  not  at  hand  to  disabuse  him  of  his 
error.  He  was  then  dying,  and  expired  the  next  year 
at  the  age  of  sixty-nine.  For  the  moment  Daifusama 
was  so  much  affected  by  the  loss  of  his  friend  that  he 
forgot  his  suspicions  and  gave  full  liberty  to  the  mission- 
aries to  exercise  their  ministry  everywhere.  In  fact, 
he  summoned  to  his  palace  the  famous  Charles  Spinola, 
who  appears  now  for  the  first  time  in  the  country  for 
which  he  was  soon  to  shed  his  blood.  With  Spinola 
was  Sequiera,  the  first  bishop  who  had  succeeded 
in  reaching  Japan.  The  imperial  summons  was  eagerly 
obeyed  by  Spinola  and  the  bishop,  for  such  progress 
had  already  been  made  in  the  formation  of  a  native 
clergy  that  five  parishes  which  they  had  established 


186  The  Jesuits 

in  Nagasaki  were  at  that  time  in  the  hands  of  Japanese 
priests,  and  an  academy  had  been  begun  in  which, 
besides  theology,  elementary  physics  and  astronomy 
were  taught.  Organtini,  who  had  labored  in  Japan 
for  forty-nine  years,  had  even  built  a  foundling  asylum, 
to  continue  the  work  which  Almeida  had  inaugurated 
elsewhere.  A  hospital  for  lepers  had  also  been  started. 

Nothing  happened  for  the  moment,  but  though  out- 
wardly favoring  the  missionaries,  Daifusama  was  in 
his  heart  worried  about  this  amazingly  rapid  expansion 
of  Christianity,  and  when  in  1612  two  merchants, 
one  from  Holland  and  one  from  England,  which 
were  plotting  to  oust  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
from  the  control  of  the  commerce  of  Japan,  aroused 
his  old  suspicions  by  assuring  him  that  the  priests 
were  in  reality  only  the  forerunners  of  invading  armies, 
the  old  hostility  flamed  out  anew.  The  opportunity 
to  work  on  Daifusama's  fears  presented  itself  in  a 
curious  way.  A  Spanish  ship  had  been  sent  from 
Mexico  by  the  viceroy  to  see  what  could  be  done 
to  establish  trade  relations  with  Japan,  and  on  coming 
into  port  it  was  seen  to  be  taking  the  usual  soundings  — 
a  mysterious  proceeding  in  the  eyes  of  the  Japanese. 
The  fact  was  reported  to  Daifusama,  who  asked  an 
English  sea-captain  what  it  meant.  "  Why,"  was  the 
reply,  "  in  Europe  that  is  considered  a  hostile  act. 
The  captain  is  charting  the  harbor  so  as  to  allow  a  fleet 
to  enter  and  invade  Japan.  These  Jesuits  are  well 
known  to  be  Spanish  priests  who  have  been  hunted 
out  of  every  nation  in  Europe  as  plotters  and  spies, 
and  the  religion  they  teach  is  only  a  cloak  to  conceal 
their  ulterior  designs." 

Whether  Daifusama  believed  this  or  not  is  hard  to 
say,  but  greater  men  than  this  rude  barbarian  have 
been  deceived  by  more  ridiculous  falsehoods.  There 
was  no  delay.  Fourteen  of  the  most  distinguished 


Japan  187 

families  of  the  empire  were  banished,  and  others 
awaited  a  like  proscription.  Then  the  persecution 
became  general;  the  churches  were  destroyed  and  all 
the  missionaries  were  ordered  out  of  the  empire. 
Daifusama  died  in  1616,  but  his  son  and  successor 
outdid  him  in  ferocity  though  there  was  a  short  lull 
on  account  of  internal  political  troubles. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  thirty-three  Jesuitr, 
slipped  back  into  the  country  under  various  disguises. 
Their  purpose  was  to  work  secretly,  so  that  the  govern- 
ment would  not  remark  their  presence.  Unfortunately, 
twenty-four  Franciscans,  deceived  by  a  rumor  that 
a  commercial  treaty  had  been  made  with  Spain  and 
"under  the  impression  that  the  root  of  the  trouble  was 
personal  dislike  for  Jesuits,  landed  at  Nagasaki  at  the 
end  of  the  year  1616,  and  insisted  on  going  out  in  the 
open  and  proclaiming  the  Gospel  publicly.  They 
reckoned  without  their  host.  A  decree  was  issued 
making  it  a  capital  offense  to  harbor  missionaries  of 
any  garb.  Not  only  that,  but  it  was  officially 
announced  that  death  would  be  inflicted  on  the  occu- 
pants of  the  ten  houses  nearest  the  one  where  a 
missionary  was  discovered.  The  Jesuits  took  to  the 
mountains  and  marshes  to  save  their  people,  but  the 
Franciscans  defied  the  edict.  The  result  was  that 
immediate  orders  were  issued  to  take  every  priest  that 
could  be  found.  Nagasaki  was  first  ransacked.  The 
Jesuits  had  all  vanished  except  Machado;  he  and  a 
Franciscan  were  captured,  and  on  May  21,  1617,  were 
decapitated.  In  spite  of  this  warning,  however,  a 
Dominican  and  an  Augustinian  publicly  celebrated 
Mass,  under  the  very  eyes  of  Sancho,  an  apostate 
prince  who  was  an  agent  of  the  Shogun.  The  result 
was  immediate  death  for  both.  The  same  useless 
bravado  was  repeated  elsewhere.  Different  tactics,  as 
we  have  said,  were  adopted  by  the  Jesuits.  Thus, 


188  The  Jesuits 

de  Angelis  covered  the  mountains  of  Voxuan;  Navarro 
and  Porro  lived  in  a  cave  in  Bungo,  and  crept  out  when 
they  could,  to  visit  their  scattered  flocks.  There  was 
a  group  also  on  the  rich  island  of  Nippon  —  among 
them  Torres,  Barretto,  Fernandes  and  a  Japanese 
named  Yukui.  From  this  place  of  concealment  they 
spread  out  in  all  directions,  usually  disguised  as  native 
peddlers;  all  of  them,  even  in  those  terrible  surround- 
ings, winning  many  converts  to  the  Faith. 

A  phenomenon  not  unusual  in  the  Church,  but  car- 
ried to  extraordinary  lengths  in  this  instance,  now 
presented  itself.  Instead  of  striking  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  the  Christians,  the  very  opposite  result 
ensued.  A  widespread  eagerness,  a  special  devotion 
for  martyrdom,  as  it  were,  manifested  itself.  Crowds 
gathered  in  every  city  to  accompany  the  victims  to 
the  place  of  execution;  the  women  and  children  put 
on  their  richest  attire;  songs  of  joy  were  sung  and 
prayers  aflame  with  enthusiasm  were  recited  by  the 
spectators,  who  kept  reminding  the  sufferers  that 
the  scaffold  was  the  stairway  to  heaven.  At  Kioto 
there  was  no  trouble  in  filling  out  the  lists  of  those 
who  were  to  be  executed.  People  came  of  themselves 
to  give  their  names.  Those  who  did  not  were  rated  as 
idolaters.  The  number  ran  up  to  several  thousands 
and  the  emperor  was  so  alarmed  that  he  cut  them 
down  to  1700.  There  were  fifteen  Jesuits  in  the  city. 
Six  of  them  were  banished,  but  the  other  nine  went 
from  place  to  place,  keeping  up  the  courage  of  their 
flocks.  Gomes  and  the  bishop  had  died  in  the  midst 
of  these  horrors;  and  the  duties  of  both  devolved  on 
Carvalho. 

Unfortunately,  at  this  juncture,  a  paper  was  found 
signed  in  blood  by  a  number  of  Christians  pledging 
themselves  to  fight  to  death  against  the  banishment 
of  the  missionaries.  That  was  enough  for  the  Shogun. 


Japan  189 

The  Jesuits,  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and 
seventeen,  with  twenty-seven  members  of  other  religious 
orders,  Augustinians,  Franciscans  and  Dominicans, 
were  dragged  down  to  Nagasaki  and  shipped  to  Macao 
and  the  Philippines.  With  them  was  Ucondono,  the 
erstwhile  commander  of  the  forces  of  Taicosama, 
On  the  vessels  also  were  several  families  of 
distinguished  people.  Some  died  on  the  journey; 
and  others,  Ucondono  among  the  number,  gave  up  the 
ghost  shortly  after  arriving  at  the  Philippines. 
Twenty-six  Jesuits  and  some  other  religious  succeeded 
in  remaining  in  Japan.  As  the  provinicial  Carvalho, 
was  among  the  exiles,  he  named  Rodrigues  as  his 
successor,  and  appointed  Charles  Spinola  to  look  after 
Nagasaki  and  the  surrounding  territory.  The  work 
had  now  become  particularly  difficult.  Thus,  one  of 
these  concealed  apostles  tells  how  most  of  his  labor 
had  to  be  performed  at  night.  Often  he  found  himself 
groping  along  unknown  roads  through  forests  and 
on  the  edges  of  precipices,  over  which  he  not  infre- 
quently rolled  to  the  bottom  of  the  abyss.  Another 
says :  "I  am  hiding  in  a  hut,  and  a  little  rice  is  handed 
in  to  me  from  time  to  time.  The  place  is  so  wet  that 
I  have  got  sciatica,  and  cannot  stand  or  sit;  most  of 
my  work  is  done  at  night,  visiting  my  flock,  while 
my  protectors  are  asleep."  So  it  was  for  all  the 
rest. 

The  Protestant  historian  Kampfer  is  often  quoted 
in  this  matter.  In  his  "  History  of  Japan  "  he  says 
that  "  the  persecution  was  the  worst  in  all  history, 
but  did  not  produce  the  effect  that  the  government 
expected.  For,  although,  according  to  the  Jesuit 
accounts,  20,570  people  suffered  death  for  the  Christian 
religion  in  1590,  yet  in  the  following  years,  when  all 
the  churches  were  closed,  there  were  12,000  proselytes. 
Japanese  writers  do  not  deny  that  Hideyori, 


190  The  Jesuits 

Taicosama's  son  and  intended  successor,  was  suspected 
of  being  a  Catholic,  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
court  officials  and  officers  of  the  army  professed  that 
religion.  The  joy  that  made  the  new  converts  suffer 
the  most  unimaginable  tortures  excited  the  public 
curiosity  to  such  an  extent  that  many  wanted  to 
know  the  religion  that  produced  such  happiness  in  the 
agonies  of  death;  and  when  told  about  it,  they  also 
enthusiastically  professed  it." 

Spinola,  who  was  seized  at  Nagasaki,  was  called  upon 
to  explain  why  he  had  remained  in  Japan,  in  spite  of 
the  edict.  He  replied:  "  There  is  a  Ruler  above  all 
kings  —  and  His  word  must  be  obeyed."  The  answer 
settled  his  fate,  and  he  and  two  Dominicans  were 
condemned  to  a  frightful  imprisonment.  It  is  recorded 
that  as  the  three  victims  approached  the  jail,  they 
intoned  the  Te  Deum,  and  that  the  refrain  was  taken 
up  by  a  Dominican  and  a  Franciscan  who  had  already 
passed  a  year  in  that  horrible  dungeon.  When  the 
martyrs  met  inside  the  walls  they  kissed  each  other 
affectionately  and  fell  on  their  knees  to  thank  God. 
Leonard  Kimura,  a  Japanese,  was  arrested  at  Nagasaki 
on  suspicion  of  having  concealed  the  son  of  the  Shogun, 
and  also  of  having  killed  a  man  while  defending  the 
prince.  He  was  acquitted,  but  when  withdrawing  he 
was  asked  if  he  could  give  the  court  information  about 
any  Jesuit  who  might  be  hiding  in  the  vicinity.  '  Yes, 
I  know  one,"  he  said,  "  I  am  a  Jesuit."  After  three 
years  in  a  dungeon  he  was  burned  at  the  stake. 

In  1619  the  Jesuits,  Spinola  and  Fernandes,  with 
fourteen  others,  Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  were 
brought  out  of  prison  and  kept  in  a  pen  with  no  protec- 
tion from  cold  or  heat  and  so  narrow  that  it  was 
impossible  to  assume  any  but  a  crouching  posture.  It 
was  hoped  that  by  exposing  them  publicly,  emaciated, 
hungry,  filthy,  and  diseased,  that  the  heroic  element 


Japan  191 

which  the  executions  seemed  to  develop  in  the  victims 
would  be  eliminated,  and  their  converts  alienated  from 
the  Faith.  The  contrary  happened,  and  from  that 
enclosure  Spinola  not  only  preached  to  the  people,  but 
actually  admitted  novices  to  the  Society.  As  he  stood 
at  the  stake  where  he  was  to  be  burned,  a  little  boy 
whom  he  had  baptized  was  put  in  his  arms;  Spinola 
blessed  him,  and  the  child  and  his  mother  were  executed 
at  the  same  time  as  their  father  in  God.  Five  Jesuits 
died  in  1619;  and  in  1620  six  others  came  from  Macao 
to  replace  them.  Next  year  brought  down  an  edict 
on  all  shipmasters,  forbidding  them  to  land  such 
undesirable  immigrants  as  missionaries.  Nevertheless, 
two  months  after  the  edict  was  published,  Borges, 
Costanza,  de  Suza,  Carvalho  and  Tzugi,  a  Japanese, 
appeared  in  the  disguise  of  merchants  and  soldiers. 
The  Dutch  and  English  traders  volunteered  after  that 
to  search  all  incoming  vessels,  and  report  the  suspicious 
passengers.  An  attempt  at  a  prison  delivery  precipi- 
tated the  condemnation  of  Spinola  and  his  companions 
in  the  pens.  They  were  burned  alive  on  September  10, 
1622;  on  the  i gth  of  the  same  month  three  more  met 
the  same  fate,  and  in  November  two  others  went  to 
heaven  through  the  flames. 

In  1623  de  Angelis  and  Simon  Jempo,  with  a  number 
of  their  followers,  were  burned  to  death,  after  having 
their  feet  cut  off.  Carvalho  and  Buzomo  were  caught 
in  a  forest  in  mid-winter,  and  on  February  21,  1624, 
were  plunged  naked  into  a  pond,  and  left  there  to 
freeze  for  the  space  of  three  hours.  Four  days  after- 
wards the  experiment  was  repeated  for  six  consecutive 
hours.  But  the  night  was  so  cold  that  they  were  both 
found  dead  in  the  morning,  wrapped  in  a  shroud  of  ice. 
Another  Carvalho  perished  in  the  same  year.  Petitions 
were  sent  from  the  Philippines  and  elsewhere,  imploring 
a  cessation  of  these  horrors,  but  the  appeals  made  the 


192  The  Jesuits 

Shogun  more  cruel.  As  the  persecutions  had  produced 
only  a  few  apostacies,  the  executioners  were  told  to 
scourge  the  victims  down  to  the  bone,  to  tear  out  their 
nails,  to  drive  rods  into  their  flesh  or  ears  or  nose,  to 
fling  them  into  pits  filled  with  venomous  snakes,  to 
cut  them  up  piece  by  piece,  to  roast  them  on  gridirons, 
to  put  red-hot  vessels  in  their  hands,  and,  what  was 
the  most  diabolical  of  all,  the  consider  the  slightest 
movement  or  cry  as  sign  of  apostacy.  Another  favorite 
punishment  was  to  hang  the  sufferer  head  down  over 
a  pit  from  which  sulphurous  or  other  fumes  were  rising, 
or  to  stretch  them  on  their  backs  and  by  means  of  a 
funnel  fill  them  full  of  water  till  the  stomach  almost 
burst,  and  then  by  jumping  on  the  body  to  force  the 
fluid  out  again. 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  enter  into  all  the  details 
of  these  martyrdoms;  but  it  will  be  enough  to  state 
that  in  a  very  few  years,  twenty-eight  native  Japanese 
Jesuits,  besides  multitudes  of  people  who  were  living 
in  the  world,  men,  women  and  children,  gave  up  their 
lives  for  the  Faith,  side  by  side  with  those  who  had 
come  from  other  parts  of  the  world  to  teach  them  how 
to  die.  In  1634  only  a  handful  of  Jesuits  remained. 
Chief  among  them  was  Vieira.  He  had  been  sent  to 
report  conditions  to  Urban  VIII,  and  in  1632  he 
returned  to  die.  He  re-entered  Japan  as  a  Chinese 
sailor,  and  for  nearly  two  years  hurried  all  over  the 
blood-stained  territory,  facing  death  at  every  step, 
until  finally  he  and  five  other  Jesuits  stood  before  the 
tribunal  and  were  told  to  apostatize  or  die.  Vieira, 
the  spokesman,  said:  "  I  am  63  years  old,  and  all  my 
life  I  have  received  innumerable  favors  from  Almighty 
God;  from  the  emperor  —  nothing,  and  I  am  not 
going  now  to  bow  down  to  idols  of  sticks  and  stones 
to  obey  a  mortal  man  like  myself.  So  say  the  others." 
They  were  put  to  death. 


Japan  193 

In  that  year,  however,  it  is  painful  and  humiliating 
to  be  obliged  to  say  there  was  a  Jesuit  in  Japan  who 
apostatized:  Father  Ferara.  It  was  the  only  scandal 
during  those  terrible  trials.  He  had  even  been  provin- 
cial, at  one  time,  but  when  the  test  came,  he  fell,  and 
the  glorious  young  Church  was  thrilled  with  horror  at 
seeing  a  man  who  had  once  taught  them  the  way  to 
heaven  now  throwing  away  his  soul.  The  shame  was 
too  much  for  the  Society,  and  it  resolved  to  wipe  it 
out.  Marcellus  Mastrilli,  a  Neapolitan,  made  the  first 
attempt  to  atone  for  the  crime.  No  one  could  enter 
Nagasaki  without  trampling  on  the  cross  —  a  device 
suggested  by  the  Dutch  and  English  merchants. 
However,  Mastrilli  made  up  his  mind  to  enter  without 
committing  the  sacrilege.  He  succeeded,  but  was 
arrested  and  led  through  the  streets  of  Nagasaki,  with 
the  proclamation  on  his  back:  "This  madman  has 
come  to  preach  a  foreign  religion,  in  spite  of  the 
emperor's  edict.  Come  and  look  at  him.  He  is  to  die 
in  the  pit."  For  sixty  hours  he  hung  over  the  horrible 
opening  through  which  the  poisonous  fumes  continually 
poured.  Finally  he  was  drawn  up  and  his  head  struck 
off.  It  was  October  17,  1637,  and  Ferara  was  looking 
on.  Three  years  afterwards  a  similar  execution  took 
place.  There  were  four  victims  this  time,  and  the 
apostate  stood  there  again. 

In  1643  the  final  attempt  was  made  to  win  back  the 
lost  one.  Father  Rubini  and  four  other  Jesuits  landed 
on  a  desolate  coast.  They  were  captured  and  dragged 
to  Nagasaki.  To  their  horror  the  judge  seated  at  the 
tribunal  was  none  other  than  Ferara.  "  Who  are  you, 
and  what  do  you  come  here  for?"  he  asked.  ;<  We  are 
Jesuits,"  they  answered,  "  and  we  come  to  preach 
Jesus  Christ,  who  died  for  us  all."  "  Abjure  your 
faith,"  cried  Ferara,  "  and  you  shall  be  rich  and 
honored."  "  Tell  that  to  cowards  whom  you  want  to 
13 


194  The  Jesuits 

dishonor,"  answered  Rubini.  "  We  trust  that  we  shall 
have  courage  to  die  like  Christians  and  like  priests." 
Ferara  fled,  and  the  missionaries  died,  but  the  shaft 
had  struck  home,  though  it  took  nine  years  for  Divine 
grace  to  achieve  its  ultimate  triumph.  The  victory 
was  won  in  1652,  when  an  old  man  of  eighty  was 
dragged  before  the  judge  at  Nagasaki.  "  Who  are 
you?"  he  was  asked.  "  I  am  one,"  he  replied,  "  who 
has  sinned  against  the  King  of  Heaven  and  earth.  I 
betrayed  Him  out  of  fear  of  death.  I  am  a  Christian; 
I  am  a  Jesuit."  His  youthful  courage  had  returned, 
and  for  sixty  hours  he  remained  unmoved  in  the  pit, 
in  spite  of  the  most  excruciating  torture.  It  was 
Ferara;  and  thus  Christianity  died  in  Japan  in  his 
blood  and  in  that  of  200,000  other  martyrs.  Eighty 
Jesuits  had  given  their  life  for  Christ  in  this  battle. 

This  disaster  in  Japan  has  been  frequently  laid  at 
the  door  of  the  Society,  because  of  its  unwillingness  to 
form  a  native  clergy.  Those  who  make  the  cruel  charge 
forget  a  very  important  fact.  It  is  this:  precisely  at 
that  time  a  native  clergy  was  not  saving  England 
or  Germany  or  any  of  the  Northern  nations.  Not  only 
that,  but  the  clergy  themselves  first  gave  the  example 
of  apostasy  in  those  countries.  Secondly,  it  had  been 
absolutely  impossible,  up  to  that  time,  to  obtain  a 
bishop  in  Japan  to  ordain  any  of  the  natives.  Sixteen 
years  had  not  elapsed  from  the  moment  the  first 
Jesuits  began  their  work  in  Japan,  namely  in  1566, 
when  Father  Oviedo,  the  Patriarch  of  Ethiopia,  was 
appointed  Bishop  of  Japan.  But  he  entreated  the 
Pope  to  let  him  die  in  the  hardships  and  dangers  by 
which  he  was  surrounded  in  Africa.  Father  Carnero 
was  then  sent  in  his  place,  but  he  died  when  he  reached 
Macao.  In  1579  a  petition  was  again  dispatched  to 
Rome  asking  for  a  bishop,  but  no  answer  was  given. 
When  the  Japanese  embassy  knelt  at  the  feet  of  the 


Japan  195 

Pope,  they  repeated  the  request.  Morales  was  then 
named,  but  he  died  on  the  way  out.  In  1596  Martines 
arrived  with  a  coadjutor,  Sequiera,  and  immediately 
a  number  of  young  Japanese  who  had  been  long  in 
preparation  for  the  priesthood  were  ordained;  in  1605 
a  parish  was  established  in  Nagasaki  and  put  in  the 
hands  of  a  native  priest.  In  1607  four  more  parishes 
were  organized.  Then  Martines  died,  and  in  1614 
Sequiera  followed  him  to  the  grave.  Finally,  Valente 
was  appointed,  but  he  never  reached  Japan. 

Rohrbacher,  the  historian,  was  especially  prominent 
in  fastening  this  calumny  on  the  Society,  and  when 
Bertrand,  the  author  of  "  Memoires  sur  les  missions," 
put  him  in  possession  of  these  facts,  not  only  was  the 
charge  not  withdrawn,  but  no  acknowledgment  was 
made  of  the  receipt  of  the  information.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  an  example  of  greater  solicitude  to  provide 
a  native  priesthood  than  was  given  by  the  Jesuits  of 
Japan.  The  crushing  out  in  blood  of  the  marvellous 
Church  which  Xavier  and  his  successors  had  created 
in  that  part  of  the  world  cannot  be  considered  a 
failure  —  at  least  in  the  minds  of  Catholics  who  under- 
stand that  "the  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
Church."  Nor  can  such  a  conclusion  be  arrived  at  by 
any  one  who  is  aware  of  what  occurred  in  the  city  of 
Nagasaki  as  late  as  the  year  1865. 

The  ports  of  Japan  had  been  opened  to  the  commerce 
of  the  world  in  1859.  But  even  then  all  attempts  to 
penetrate  into  the  interior  had  been  hopelessly 
frustrated.  On  March  17,  1865  Father  Petitjean,  of 
the  Foreign  Missions,  was  praying,  disconsolate  and 
despondent,  in  a  little  chapel  he  had  built  in  Nagasaki. 
No  native  had  ever  entered  it.  One  morning  he 
became  aware  of  the  presence  of  three  women  kneeling 
at  his  side.  ' '  Have  you  a  Pope  ? ' '  they  asked.  ' '  Yes, ' ' 


196  The  Jesuits 

was  the  answer.  "  Do  you  pray  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  ?" 
"Yes."  "Are  you  married?"  "No."  "Do  you 
take  the  discipline?"  To  the  last  interrogatory  he 
replied  by  holding  up  that  instrument  of  penance. 
"  Then  you  are  a  Christian  like  ourselves."  To  his 
amazement  he  found  that  in  Nagasaki  and  its  immediate 
surroundings,  which  had  been  the  principal  theatre  of 
the  terrible  martyrdoms  of  former  times  —  there  were 
no  less  than  2,500  native  Japanese  Catholics.  In  a 
second  place  there  was  a  settlement  of  at  least  a 
thousand  families,  and,  later  on;  five  other  groups  were 
found  in  various  sections  of  the  country;  and  it  was 
certain  that  there  was  a  great  number  of  others  in 
various  localities.  As  many  as  50,000  Christians  were 
ultimately  discovered.  Pius  IX  was  so  much  moved 
by  this  wonderful  event,  that  he  made  the  i;th  of 
March  the  great  religious  festival  of  the  Church  of 
Japan,  and  decreed  that  it  was  to  be  celebrated  under 
the  title  of  "  The  Finding  of  the  Christians." 

A  Church  that  could  preserve  its  spiritual  life  for 
over  two  hundred  years  in  the  midst  of  pagan  hatred 
and  pagan  corruption,  without  any  sacramental  help 
but  that  of  baptism,  and  without  priests,  without 
preaching,  without  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  and  could 
present  itself  to  the  world  at  the  end  of  that  long 
period  of  trial  and  privation  with  50,000  Christians, 
the  remnants  of  those  other  hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  who,  through  the  centuries,  had  never 
faltered  in  their  allegiance  to  Christ,  was  not  a  failure. 
It  may  be  noted,  moreover,  that  this  survival  of  the 
Faith  after  long  years  of  privation  of  the  sacraments 
of  the  Church  is  not  the  exclusive  glory  of  Japan. 
Other  instances  will  be  noted  when  the  Society  resumed 
its  work  after  the  Suppression. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    GREAT   STORMS 
1580-1597 

Manares  suspected  of  ambition  —  Election  of  Aquaviva  —  Beginning 
of  Spanish  discontent  —  Denis  Vdsquez  —  The  "  Ratio  Studiorum  "  — 
Society's  action  against  Confessors  of  Kings  and  Political  Embassies  — 
Trouble  with  the  Spanish  Inquisition  and  Philip  II  —  Attempts  at  a 
Spanish  Schism  —  The  Ormanetto  papers  —  Ribadeneira  suspected  — 
Imprisonment  of  Jesuits  by  the  Spanish  Inquisition  —  Action  of  Toletus 

—  Extraordinary  Congregation  called  —  Exculpation  of  Aquaviva  — 
The  dispute  "  de  Auxiliis  " —  Antoine  Arnauld's  attack  —  Henry  IV 
and  Jean  Chastel  —  Reconciliation  of  Henry  IV  to  the  Church  —  Royal 
protection  —  Saint  Charles  Borromeo  —  Troubles  in  Venice  —  Sarpi 

—  Palafox. 

WHEN  Mercurian  died,  on  August  i,  1580,  Oliver 
Manares,  who,  like  the  deceased  General,  was  a  Belgian, 
called  the  general  congregation  for  February  7,  1581. 
Two  of  the  old  companions  of  St.  Ignatius,  Salmer6n 
and  Bobadilla,  were  there,  as  were  also  the  able 
coadjutor  of  Canisius,  Hoffaeus,  and  Claude  Matthieu, 
the  latter  of  whom  was  beginning  to  be  conspicuous 
in  the  League  against  the  King  of  Navarre.  Maldo- 
natus,  also,  occupied  a  seat  in  the  distinguished 
assembly.  Before  the  congregation  met,  rumors  began 
to  be  heard  that  Manares  was  seeking  the  generalship 
for  himself.  The  grounds  of  the  suspicions  seem 
almost  too  frivolous  for  an  outsider,  but  in  an  order 
which  had  pronounced  so  positively  against  ambition 
in  the  Church,  it  was  proper  that  it  should  be 
scrupulously  sensitive  about  any  act  in  the  body 
itself  that  might  resemble  it.  The  grounds  of  the 
accusation  were  that  he  had  sent  a  present  to  Father 
Toletus  who  was  very  close  to  the  Pope,  and  had  also 
once  said  to  a  lay-brother:  "If  I  were  General, 
I  would  do  so  and  so."  A  committee  was  appointed 

197 


198  The  Jesuits 

to  examine  the  case,  and  Manares  was  declared  in- 
eligible. The  Pope  found  the  action  of  the  congre- 
gregation  excessively  rigid,  but,  possibly,  as  in  the 
preceding  congregation  it  had  been  decided  that  the 
succession  of  three  Spanish  Generals  contained  in  it 
an  element  of  danger,  so  it  was  feared  that  as  the  dead 
General  who  had  appointed  one  of  his  own  race  to  be 
vicar,  there  might  be  reason  for  apprehension  in  that 
also.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  power  given  to  the 
General  to  appoint  his  vicar  was  by  some  looked  upon 
as  quite  unwise,  as  it  afforded  at  least  a  remote  oppor- 
tunity for  self -perpetuation. 

On  February  19,  1581,  Claudius  Aquaviva  was 
elected  General  of  the  Society  by  thirty-two  votes 
out  of  fifty-one.  He  was  not  yet  thirty-eight  years  of 
age.  The  Pope  was  astounded  at  the  choice,  but  the 
sequel  proved  that  it  was  providential.  "  No  one," 
says  Bartoli,  "  was  raised  to  that  dignity  who  had 
given  more  evident  or  more  numerous  signs  that  his 
election  came  from  God,  and  perhaps,  no  one,  with 
the  exception  of  St.  Ignatius,  has  a  greater  claim  to 
the  gratitude  of  the  Society  or  has  helped  it  more 
efficaciously  to  achieve  the  object  for  which  it  was 
founded."  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  the  Duke  of 
Atri,  and  was  born  at  Naples  in  1543.  As  his  youth 
was  passed  in  his  father's  palace,  he  could  at  most 
only  have  heard  the  names  of  some  of  the  companions 
of  St.  Ignatius,  but  when  he  was  about  twenty  years 
of  age  he  was  sent  to  Rome  to  defend  some  family 
interest,  and  he  attracted  so  much  attention  that  he 
was  retained  at  court,  first  by  Paul  IV,  and  afterwards 
by  Pius  V,  both  of  whom  were  struck  by  his  superior 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart.  There  for  the  first  time 
he  came  in  contact  with  the  Jesuits.  It  happened 
that  Christopher  Rodriguez,  John  Polanco,  and  Francis 
Borgia  were  frequently  admitted  to  an  audience  with 


199 


the  Holy  Father,  and  young  Aquaviva  was  so  drawn 
to  them  when  he  heard  them  speaking  of  Divine 
things,  that  he  began  to  make  inquiries  about  their 
manner  of  life  and  the  rule  they  followed.  He  felt 
called  to  join  them  but  he  hesitated  a  while,  for  the 
Roman  purple  was  an  honor  that  was  assured  him; 
finally,  however,  he  made  up  his  mind,  and  after  the 
Pontifical  Mass  on  St.  Peter's  day  he  fell  at  Borgia's 
feet  and  asked  for  admission  to  the  Society.  When 
Ormanetto,  the  papal  legate,  heard  of  it,  he  exclaimed : 
'  The  Apostolic  College  has  lost  its  finest  ornament." 

Nine  years  later,  Aquaviva  was  made  rector  of  the 
Roman  Seminary,  and  then,  by  a  strange  coincidence, 
became  rector  of  the  College  of  Naples,  as  successor 
of  Dionisio  Vasquez,  who  later  on  was  to  be  very  con- 
spicuous in  an  attempt  by  the  Spanish  members 
to  disrupt  the  Society,  and  thus  occasion  the  bitterest 
trial  of  Aquaviva's  administration  as  General.  After 
rapidly  repairing  the  ruin  that  Vasquez  had  caused  in 
Naples,  Aquaviva  was  made  provincial,  and  was  then 
entrusted  with  the  care  of  the  Roman  province.  He 
had  served  in  that  capacity  only  a  year  when  he  was 
elected  General.  Some  years  before  that,  Nadal  must 
have  foreseen  the  promotion  when  he  advised  Aquaviva 
to  make  the  Constitutions  of  Saint  Ignatius  his  only 
reading.  "  You  will  stand  very  much  in  need  of  it," 
he  said.  The  congregation  formulated  sixty-nine 
decrees,  one  of  which  gave  the  General  power  to  appoint 
his  vicar,  and  another  to  interpret  the  Constitutions. 
Such  interpretations,  however,  were  not  to  have  the 
force  of  law,  but  were  to  be  considered  merely  as 
practical  directions  for  government.  Another  decree 
regulated  the  method  to  be  followed  in  the  dissolution 
of  houses  and  colleges. 

Aquaviva's  first  letter  to  the  Society  was  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  qualities  which  superiors  should  possess 


200  The  Jesuits 

—  especially  those  of  vigilance,  sweetness  and  strength. 
His  second  was  more  universal,  and  dealt  with  the 
necessity  of  a  constant  renewal  of  the  spiritual  life. 
To  him  the  Society  is  indebted  for  the  "  Directorium," 
or  guide  of  the  Spiritual  Exercises. 

Under  his  administration  the  "  Ratio  Studiorum," 
or  scheme  of  studies,  was  produced.  It  was  the 
result  of  fifteen  years  of  collaboration  (1584-99)  by 
a  number  of  the  most  competent  scholars  that  could 
be  found  in  the  Society.  It  covers  the  whole  edu- 
cational field  from  theology  down  to  the  grammar  of 
the  lower  classes,  exclusive,  however,  of  the  elements. 
Of  course,  this  "  Ratio  "  has  not  escaped  criticism, 
for  scarcely  anything  the  Society  ever  attempted  has 
had  that  good  fortune.  Thus,  to  take  one  out  of  many, 
Michelet  bemoans  the  fact  that  "  the  Ratio  has  been 
in  operation  for  300  years  and  has  not  yet  produced 
a  man."  Such  a  charge,  of  course,  does  not  call  for 
discussion. 

The  greatest  service  that  Aquaviva  rendered  the 
Society,  and  for  which  it  will  ever  bless  his  memory 
is  that  he  saved  it  from  destruction  in  a  fight  that  ran 
through  the  thirty  years  of  his  Generalate,  and  in 
which  he  found  opposed  to  him  Popes,  kings,  and 
princes,  along  with  the  terrible  authority  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  and,  worst  of  all,  a  number  of  discontented 
members  of  the  Order,  banded  together  and  resorting 
to  the  most  reprehensible  tactics  to  alter  completely 
the  character  of  the  Institute  and  to  rob  it  of  that 
Catholicity  which  constitutes  its  glory  and  its  power. 

He  began  his  work  by  making  it  impossible,  as  far 
as  it  lay  in  his  power,  for  a  Jesuit  to  be  used  as  the 
tool  of  any  prince  or  potentate,  no  matter  how  dazzling 
might  be  the  dignity  with  which  one  so  employed 
was  invested,  or  the  glory  which  his  work  reflected  on 
the  Society.  Thus,  he  put  his  ban  on  the  office  of 


The  Great  Storms  201 

royal  confessor,  which  some  of  the  members  of  the 
Society  in  those  days  were  compelled  to  accept.  He 
could  not  prevent  it  absolutely  just  then,  but  he  laid 
down  such  stringent  laws  regarding  it,  that  all  ambition 
or  desire  of  that  very  unapostolic  work  was  eliminated. 
Its  inconveniences  were  manifest.  It  is  inconceivable, 
for  instance,  that  a  sovereign  like  Henry  IV,  who  was 
a  devoted  friend  of  the  Society,  ever  consulted  Father 
Coton  about  scruples  of  conscience;  for  his  majesty 
was  never  subject  to  spiritual  worry  of  that  description ; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  the  unfortunate  confessor  was 
often  suspected  or  accused  of  influencing  or  advising 
political  measures  with  which  he  could  have  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do.  Jealousy  also,  of  those 
who  were  appointed  to  the  office  was  inevitable,  and 
dislike  and  hatred  not  only  of  the  individual  who 
occupied  the  post,  but  of  the  order  to  which  he  belonged 
was  aroused.  Even  the  confessor's  own  relatives  and 
friends  were  alienated,  because  he  was  forbidden  to 
make  use  of  his  spiritual  influence  for  their  worldly 
advantage.  Finally,  apart  from  the  loss  of  time, 
daily  contact  with  the  vice  of  the  court,  which  he 
could  not  openly  reprehend,  necessarily  reacted  on  the 
spiritual  tone  of  the  religious  himself. 

The  same  objections  obtained  for  the  flamboyant 
embassies  which  had  been  so  much  in  vogue  up  to 
that  time,  and  which  are  still  quoted  as  evidencing 
the  wonderful  influence  wielded  by  the  Society  in  those 
days.  They,  too,  were  stopped,  for  the  reason  that 
although  they  were  nearly  always  connected  with  the 
interests  of  the  Faith,  yet  they  were  very  largely 
controlled  by  worldly  politics.  Hence  Possevin,  who 
had  made  such  a  stir  by  his  embassies  to  Muscovy, 
Sweden,  Poland  and  elsewhere,  was  relegated  to  a 
class-room  in  Padua.  Matthieu,  who  figured  con- 
spicuously in  the  politico-religious  troubles  of  France 


202  The  Jesuits 

as  the  "  Courier  de  la  Ligue,"  was  told  to  desist  from 
his  activities,  although  Pope  Sixtus  V  judged  otherwise ; 
and  finally,  the  most  famous  orator  of  his  day  in  France, 
Father  Auger,  who  was  loud  in  his  denunciation  of 
the  Holy  League,  received  peremptory  orders  to 
desist  from  discussing  the  subject  at  all.  His  quick 
obedience  to  the  command  was  the  best  sermon  he 
ever  preached. 

Aquaviva  had  also  a  very  protracted  struggle  with 
Philip  II  in  relation  to  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  The 
king  had  frequently  expressed  a  desire  to  have  a  Jesuit 
in  one  or  other  of  the  conspicuous  offices  of  that 
tribunal,  but  Aquaviva  stubbornly  refused,  first, 
because  of  the  odium  attached  to  the  Inquisition  itself, 
and  also  because  he  suspected  that  Philip  designed,  by 
that  means,  to  lay  hold  of  the  machinery  of  the  'Society 
and  control  it.  His  most  glorious  battle,  however, 
was  one  that  was  fought  in  the  Society  itself,  against 
an  organized  movement  which  was  making  straight  for 
the  destruction  of  the  great  work  of  St.  Ignatius.  It 
is  somewhat  of  a  stain  on  the  splendid  history  of  the 
Order,  but  it  should  not  be  concealed  or  palliated  or 
explained  away,  for  it  not  only  reveals  the  masterful 
generalship  of  Aquaviva,  but  it  also  brings  out,  in 
splendid  relief,  the  magnificent  resisting  power  of  the 
organization  itself. 

The  Spanish  Jesuits  were  profoundly  shocked  when 
the  Pope  prevented  the  perpetuation  of  Spanish  rule 
in  the  Society.  The  psychological  reason  of  their 
surprise  was  that  the  average  Spaniard  at  that  time 
was  convinced  that  Spain  alone  was  immune  from 
heresy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  the  other  nations  of 
Europe,  Ireland  excepted,  had  been  infected,  and 
possibly  it  was  a  mistaken  loyalty  to  the  Church  that 
prompted  a  certain  number  of  them  to  organize  a  plot 
to  make  the  Society  exclusively  Spanish  or  destroy  it. 


The  Great  Storms  203 

It  will  come  as  a  painful  discovery  for  many  that  the 
originator  of  this  nefarious  scheme  was  Father  Araoz, 
the  nephew  of  St.  Ignatius.  Astrain  (II,  101)  regrets 
to  admit  it,  but  the  documents  in  his  hands  make  it 
imperative.  He  quotes  letters  which  show  that  even 
in  the  time  of  St.  Ignatius,  Araoz  complained  of  the 
Roman  administration,  putting  the  blame,  however, 
on  Polanco.  His  discontent  was  more  manifest  under 
Lainez,  when  he  maintained  that  the  General  should 
not  be  elected  for  life;  that  provincials  and  rectors 
should  be  voted  for,  as  in  other  Orders;  that  there 
should  be  a  general  chapter  in  Spain  to  manage  its  own 
affairs,  and  not  only  that  no  foreigner  should  be 
admitted  to  a  Spanish  province,  but  that  there  should 
not  even  be  any  communication  with  non-Spaniards 
in  other  sections  of  the  Society.  One  would  not  expect 
such  Knownothingism  in  a  Jesuit,  but  the  documents 
setting  forth  these  facts  which  were  found  among  the 
papers  of  Araoz  after  his  death  make  it  only  too 
manifest.  They  contain  among  other  things  accounts 
of  the  opposition  of  Araoz  to  Lainez,  to  Francis  Borgia, 
and  to  Nadal,  none  of  which  is  very  pleasant  reading. 

In  a  letter  unearthed  by  Antonio  Ibanez,  the  visitor 
of  the  province  of  Toledo,  Araoz  goes  on  to  say: 
"  (i)  We  must  petition  the  Pope  and  ask  that  all 
religious  orders  in  Spain  shall  have  a  Spanish  general, 
independent  of  the  one  in  Rome,  so  as  to  avoid  the 
danger  of  heresy.  (2)  No  Spaniard  living  outside  of 
Spain  should  be  elected  general,  commissary  or  visitor 
in  Spain.  (3)  As  there  is  such  a  diversity  of  customs 
and  usages  in  each  nation,  they  should  not  mix  with 
one  another.  (4)  General  congregations  expose  the 
delegates  to  act  as  spies  for  the  enemy.  (5)  The  king 
should  write  to  the  cardinal  protector  of  the  religious 
orders  not  to  oppose  this  plan."  Other  papers  by 
Spanish  Jesuits  were  found  among  those  of  Ormanetto, 


204  The  Jesuits 

nuncio  at  Madrid,  who  died  on  June  17,  1577.  They 
call  for  drastic  changes,  in  the  difference  of  grades,  the 
manner  of  electing  superiors,  dismissals  from  the 
Society,  and  such  matters.  The  authorship  of  the 
Ormanetto  papers  could  not  be  determined  with 
certainty,  but  suspicion  fell  upon  Father  Solier,  and 
for  a  time,  even  upon  Ribadeneira  who,  at  that  time, 
was  in  Madrid  for  his  health,  and  was  in  the  habit 
of  calling  frequently  at  the  nunciature  with  Solier.  In 
the  following  year,  it  was  admitted  that  the  suspicion 
about  him  was  unfounded.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
subsequently  wrote  a  denunciation  of  the  conspiracy 
and  a  splendid  defense  of  the  Institute.  That  King 
Philip  knew  what  was  going  on  was  revealed  by  certain 
remarks  he  let  drop,  such  as:  "  Your  General  does  not 
know  how  to  govern;  we  need  a  Spanish  superior 
independent  of  the  General;  we  have  able  men  here 
like  Ribadeneira  and  others,  etc." 

At  the  end  of  1577  it  was  discovered  that  Father 
Dionisio  Vasquez,  who  was  of  Jewish  extraction,  was 
disseminating  these  ideas  by  letter  and  by  word  of 
mouth.  The  friendship  that  existed  between  him  and 
Ribadeneira  from  childhood  again  threw  a  cloud  over 
the  latter,  but  finally  the  provincial  learned  from  Vasquez 
himself  that  Ribadeneira  knew  nothing  at  all  about 
the  whole  affair.  By  that  time  the  names  of  the  chief 
plotters  were  revealed,  and  it  was  also  discovered  that 
Vasquez  had  given  one  copy  of  his  memorial  to  the 
king  and  another  to  the  Inquisition.  Two  more  had 
been  shown  to  various  other  people.  Vasquez  alleged 
eight  reasons  for  this  attempt  to  change  the  character 
of  the  Society:  (i)  Because  the  General  had  to  treat 
with  so  many  depraved  and  heretical  nations,  that 
there  was  a  danger  of  contaminating  the  whole  Society. 
(2)  Money  and  subjects  were  being  taken  from  Spain 
to  benefit  other  provinces.  (3)  If  any  one  was  in 


The  Great  Storms  205 

danger  of  being  punished  by  the  Inquisition  it  was 
easy  to  send  the  culprit  elsewhere.  (4)  Rome  was 
governing  by  means  of  information  which  was  fre- 
quently false.  (5)  There  were  delays  in  correspondence. 
(6)  As  the  General  never  left  Rome,  he  could  not  visit 
his  subjects.  (7)  When  the  king  asks  for  missionaries, 
Rome  often  answers  that  there  are  none  to  send. 
(8)  There  should  be  a  commissary  in  Spain,  because 
Spaniards  are  badly  treated  in  Rome.  Astrain  notes 
that  these  pretences  of  the  danger  of  heresy,  respect 
for  the  Inquisition,  and  the  needs  of  satisfying  the 
king's  demands  for  missionaries  were  devised  merely  to 
win  the  favor  of  Philip.  Another  conspirator  whose 
name  appears  is  Estrada.  He  is  described  by  the 
provincial  as  a  "  novus  homo  whose  conversation  is 
pestilential." 

There  was  no  public  manifestation  of  this  spirit 
of  schism  in  the  first  years  of  Aquaviva's  Generalship, 
though  in  Spain  a  great  deal  of  underhand  plotting 
was  going  on  between  some  of  the  discontented  ones 
and  the  Inquisition.  Four  persons,  however,  had 
caused  grave  anxiety  to  their  Superiors,  namely: 
Dionisio  Vasquez,  Francisco  de  Abreo,  Gonzalo 
Gonzalez  and  Enrique  Enriquez.  Following  in  their 
wake,  came  Alonso  Polanco,  nephew  of  the  famous 
Polanco,  Jose  de  San  Julian,  Diego  de  Santa  Cruz,  and 
a  certain  number  of  inconspicuous  persons  whose 
names  it  is  not  necessary  to  give.  In  the  background, 
however,  there  were  two  men  of  considerable  impor- 
tance: Mariana,  whose  writings  have  given  so  much 
trouble  to  the  Society,  and  Jose  de  Acosta.  To  these 
Jouvancy  in  his  "  Epitome"  and  Prat  in  his 
"  Ribadeneira  "  add  the  name  of  Jerome  de  Acosta, 
but  according  to  Astrain,  the  two  historians  are  in  error 
both  as  to  the  character  of  Jerome  and  his  participation 
in  the  plot.  He  was,  indeed,  suspected  of  being  mixed 


206  The  Jesuits 

up  in  it,  but  the  suspicion  was  soon  dispelled,  as  in  the 
case  of  Ribandeneira.  Manuel  Lopez  was  at  most  a 
suspect,  because  he  was  a  friend  and  admirer  of  Araoz 
and  because,  although  the  oldest  man  in  the  province, 
he  gave  no  aid  to  the  defenders  of  the  Institute.  When 
the  fight  was  ended,  however,  he  pronounced  for  those 
who  had  won. 

Meantime  Enriquez,  by  means  of  false  accusations, 
had  induced  the  Inquisition  to  put  in  prison  on  various 
charges  Fathers  Marcen,  Lavata,  Lopez  and  the  famous 
Ripalda.  That  tribunal  also  expelled  others  from 
Valladolid  and  Castile,  and  called  for  the  Bulls,  the 
privileges,  and  the  "Ratio  studiorum"  of  the  Society. 
The  findings  of  the  judges  were  put  before  the  king, 
and  the  Inquisition  then  demanded  all  the  copies  of 
the  aforesaid  documents  that  the  Fathers  had  (Astrain, 
III,  376).  So  far  the  inquisitors  were  safe,  but  they 
took  one  step  more  which  ruined  the  plot  in  which  they 
were  conscious  or  unconscious  participators.  Under 
pain  of  excommunication  they  forbade  a  band  of  thirty 
Jesuit  missionaries  who  were  on  their  way  to  Transyl- 
vania to  leave  Spain,  the  reason  being  that  they 
endangered  their  faith  in  embarking  on  such  an  enter- 
prise. It  was  the  plotter,  Enrique  Enriquez  who 
suggested  this  piece  of  idiocy.  When  Sixtus  V,  who 
was  then  Pope,  heard  of  the  order,  he  sent  such  a 
vigorous  reprimand  to  the  Inquisition  that  all  the 
confiscated  papers  were  immediately  restored  and  the 
imprisoned  theologians  were  liberated  from  jail  after 
two  years'  confinement. 

But  the  enemy  was  not  yet  beaten.  Anonymous 
petitions  kept  pouring  in  upon  the  Inquisition,  "  all 
of  them,"  says  Astrain,  "  bearing  the  stamp  of  the 
atrabilious  Vasquez,  the  rigorist  Gonzalez,  the  under- 
handed Enriquez,  and  the  sombre  Abreo."  Besides 
the  old  demands,  a  new  one  was  made,  namely,  the 


The  Great  Storms  207 

investigation  of  the  Society  by  an  official  of  the 
Inquisition.  Finally,  in  the  provincial  congregation 
of  1587,  the  hand  of  Vasquez  was  visible  when  a  general 
congregation  was  asked  for  unanimously  and  a  request 
made  for  a  procurator  for  the  Spanish  provinces.  Mean- 
time, Philip  had  been  wrought  upon  and  he  sup- 
ported the  petition  for  the  visit  of  an  inquisitor, 
who  was  none  other  than  D.  Jeronimo  Manrique,  the 
Bishop  of  Cartagena,  a  choice  which  shows  that  these 
Jesuit  insurrectos  were  not  gifted  with  the  shrewdness 
usually  attributed  to  their  brethren.  For  apart  from 
the  odiousness  of  having  an  unfriendly  outsider  investi- 
gate, it  so  happened  that  Manrique  had  a  very  unsavory 
past,  and  when  that  was  called  to  the  attention  of 
Sixtus,  the  whole  foolish  project  collapsed  of  itself,  and 
King  Philip  confessed  his  defeat. 

All  this  finally  convinced  Sixtus  V  that  there  was 
something  radically  wrong  with  the  Society,  and  he 
ordered  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy  Office  (the  Roman 
Inquisition)  to  examine  the  Constitutions.  Aquaviva 
protested  that  it  was  unjust  to  judge  the  Order  from 
anonymous  writings,  many  of  them  forgeries  by  a 
single  individual;  and  that  the  faults  were  alleged  not 
with  a  view  to  correction,  but  to  alter  the  Institute 
radically.  With  regard  to  the  proposal  of  a  capitular 
government,  several  objectionable  consequences,  he 
said,  must  follow,  such  as  ambition,  simony,  laxity  of 
discipline,  and  the  like,  and  he  emphasized  the  fact 
that  Sixtus  himself,  only  a  short  time  before,  had 
urged  the  appointment  of  Italian  superiors  in  France. 
He  convinced  the  Pope,  also,  that  the  exclusiveness 
advocated  by  the  Spaniards,  in  refusing  subjects  from 
other  parts  of  the  world  would  soon  shrivel  up  the 
Spanish  provinces  themselves.  Finally,  a  capitular 
government  in  missionary  countries  was  a  physical 
impossibility,  and  would  disrupt  the  whole  Order. 


208  The  Jesuits 

Indeed,  when  Cardinal  Colonna  mentioned  the  word 
"capitular"  to  the  Pope,  His  Holiness  interjected: 
"  I  don't  want  chapters  in  the  Society.  You  would 
have  one  in  every  city  and  every  family;  and  that  does 
not  suit  the  system  of  the  Jesuits." 

While  this  was  going  on,  letters  were  received  from 
the  Emperor  Rodolf,  King  Sigismond,  the  Duke  of 
Bavaria,  and  other  princes  and  distinguished  person- 
ages, entreating  the  Pope  to  make  no  change  in  the 
Institute.  The  protest  of  the  Duke  of  Bavaria  espe- 
cially startled  the  Pontiff,  and  he  surmised  that  it  was 
a  Jesuit  fabrication,  or  that  it  had  been  asked  for  or 
suggested.  Such  was  really  the  case.  The  points  had 
been  drawn  up  by  Alber,  the  provincial  of  Germany, 
and  the  Duke  had  heartily  approved  of  them.  At 
that,  the  Pope  relented  and  declared  that  he  never  had 
any  intention  of  changing  the  Institute.  What  he 
chiefly  desired  was  to  prevent  certain  Jesuits  from 
interfering  in  politics  more  than  was  proper  —  an 
allusion,  in  Sacchini's  opinion,  to  Possevin  and  Auger, 
who  had  already  been  retired  by  the  General.  Sixtus 
had  apparently  changed  his  mind  about  these  semi- 
political  occupations. 

Thus  ended  the  year  1589,  but  the  year  1590  had 
new  troubles  in  store.  Up  to  that  time,  the  Sacred 
Congregation,  whose  members,  especially  Caraffa,  were 
friendly  to  the  Society,  had  purposely  delayed  sending 
in  a  report  to  the  Pope.  He  was  indignant  at  this, 
and  handed  the  case  over  to  four  theologians.  Their 
verdict  was  in  conformity  with  the  views  of  Sixtus. 
They  were  more  timid  than  the  cardinals.  By  de- 
duction from  Aquaviva's  argument  against  the  findings, 
the  first  complaint  was  about  the  name:  'The 
Society  of  Jesus."  Then  follow  the  various  matters 
of  stipends,  penances,  the  profession,  the  examinations 
for  grade,  doctrines,  the  eighth  rule  of  the  Summary 


The  Great  Storms  209 

forbidding  assistance  to  relatives,  obedience,  the 
account  of  conscience,  delay  of  profession,  fraternal 
correction,  censors,  and  simple  vows.  Astrain  gives 
Aquaviva's  answer  to  all  these  charges  in  detail 
(III,  465).  The  cardinals,  without  exception,  admitted 
Aquaviva's  rebuttal,  and  when  they  gave  the  Pope 
their  verdict,  he  said:  "All  of  you,  even  those  who 
are  of  my  own  creation,  favor  these  Fathers."  One 
thing,  however,  he  insisted  on,  and  that  was  the 
change  of  name,  and  he  therefore  ordered  Aquaviva 
to  send  in  a  formal  request  to  that  effect.  There  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  submit,  and  the  Pope  signed 
the  Brief,  but  as  the  bell  of  San  Andrea  summoned  the 
novices  to  litanies  that  night,  Sixtus  died,  and  ever 
since  the  tradition  runs  in  Rome  that  if  the  litany 
bell  rings  when  the  Pope  is  sick,  his  last  hour  has 
come.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  Society  was  accused 
of  having  had  something  to  do  with  the  Pope's 
opportune  demise.  The  successor  of  Sixtus  tore  up 
the  Brief,  and  the  Society  kept  its  name. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  the  battle  continued.  Clement 
VIII  succeeded  Sixtus  V  on  January  29,  1592,  and  his 
election  was  welcomed  by  the  Spanish  rebels,  for  he 
was  credited  with  a  personal  antipathy  to  Aquaviva. 
Hence  they  revived  Philip's  interest  in  the  matter. 
His  ambassador  at  Rome  was  more  than  friendly 
to  the  project,  and  it  was  confidently  hoped  that  the 
great  Spanish  Jesuit,  Toletus,  the  friend  of  the  Pope, 
could  be  won  over.  The  fact  that,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Aquaviva,  the  Pope  had  rendered  a  decision  about 
the  sacrament  of  Penance  which  the  Inquisition 
regarded  as  an  infringement  of  its  rights,  again  brought 
that  tribunal  into  the  fray.  The  new  plan  of  the 
conspirators  was,  first,  to  re-assert  the  claims  advanced 
by  Vasquez  the  year  before,  and  failing  that,  to  de- 
mand, at  least,  a  commissary  general  for  Spain.  They 
14 


210  The  Jesuits 

wrote  to  Philip  asking  for  his  authorization  and  support. 
When  Aquaviva  was  apprised  of  all  this,  he  requested 
the  king  to  name  anyone  he  chose  to  pass  on  the 
proposal  for  a  commissary.  Philip  picked  out  Loyasa, 
the  instructor  of  the  heir  apparent;  but  he,  after 
examining  the  question,  bluntly  told  the  insurgents: 
"  I  do  not  at  all  share  your  opinion,  and  I  am  positive 
that  Ignatius,  like  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis,  was 
inspired  by  God  in  the  foundation  of  his  Order.  One 
Pope  is  enough  to  govern  the  Church,  and  one  General 
ought  to  be  enough  for  the  Society."  Foiled  in  this, 
they  induced  the  Pope  and  the  king  to  compel  the 
General  to  call  a  general  congregation;  and  in  order 
to  make  it  easier  to  carry  out  their  plot,  they  per- 
suaded the  Pope  to  send  Aquaviva  to  settle  a  dispute 
between  the  Dukes  of  Parma  and  Mantua,  thus 
keeping  him  out  of  Rome  for  three  whole  months. 
Toletus  is  accused  of  having  been  a  party  to  this 
removal  of  Aquaviva,  but  the  proof  adduced  is  not 
convincing.  At  Naples,  Aquaviva  fell  seriously  ill,  and 
the  Fathers  demanded  his  recall.  It  was  only  on  his 
return  that  he  began  to  appreciate  the  full  extent 
and  bearing  of  the  movement  as  well  as  the  peril  in 
which  the  Society  was  involved.  For  although  all  the 
cardinals  were  on  his  side,  yet  arrayed  against  him 
were  the  king,  the  Pope  and  a  number  of  the  pro- 
fessed. The  case  seemed  hopeless.  Finally,  Toletus 
informed  him  that  the  Pope  insisted  on  a  general 
congregation  and  it  was  summoned  for  November  4, 

1593- 

To  make  matters  worse,  Toletus  was  then  made 
cardinal;  whereupon  the  insurgents  asked  the  Pope  to 
authorize  Jose  Acosta  and  some  of  his  associates  to 
enter  the  congregation  —  a  privilege  they  had  no 
claim  to  —  and  also  to  have  Toletus  preside.  The 
congregation  began  its  sessions  on  the  day  appointed. 


The  Great  Storms  211 

There  were  sixty-three  professed  present  among  them 
Acosta,  but  Aquaviva,  not  Toletus,  was  in  the  chair. 
The  usual  committee  was  appointed  for  the  business 
of  the  congregation,  and  Aquaviva  insisted  that  they 
should  begin  by  investigating  the  complaints  against 
his  administration.  They  did  so,  and  were  amazed  to 
find  that  all  the  charges  were  based  on  false  impressions, 
personal  prejudices,  and  imaginary  acts.  They  were 
naturally  indignant  and  when  they  reported  to  the 
Pope,  he  said:  "They  wanted  to  find  a  culprit  and 
they  have  discovered  a  saint."  The  demands  of  the 
Spaniards  were  then  examined.  According  to 
Jouvancy,  the  province  of  Castile  fathered  them. 
They  were  in  the  main:  a  modification  of  the  time 
and  manner  of  profession;  the  abolition  of  grades; 
the  introduction  of  a  new  mode  of  dismissal;  and 
the  full  use  of  the  "  Bulla  Cruciata." 

The  business  of  the  congregation  was  conducted  as 
usual  up  to  the  twenty-first  decree.  Philip  II  of  Spain 
had  asked  that  the  members  of  the  Society  should 
not  avail  themselves  of  the  privileges  accorded  them 
—  first  of  reading  prohibited  books;  secondly,  of 
absolving  from  heresy;  thirdly,  of  exemption  from 
honors  and  dignities  outside  the  Society.  The  twenty- 
first  decree  states  that  the  first  two  royal  requests 
had  already  been  acted  upon.  With  regard  to  the 
third,  it  was  decreed  that  his  majesty  should  be  en- 
treated to  use  his  authority  against  the  acceptance  of 
ecclesiastical  and  civic  honors  by  members  of  the 
Society.  It  was  only  in  the  fifty-second  decree  that 
the  Society  expressed  its  mind  on  the  race  question, 
by  ruling  that  applicants  of  Hebrew  and  Saracenic 
origin  were  not  to  be  admitted  to  the  Society.  It 
even  declared  that  those  who  were  admitted  through 
error  should  be  expelled  if  the  error  were  discovered 
prior  to  their  profession.  It  had  been  found  that  out 


212  The  Jesuits 

of  the  twenty-seven  conspirators,  twenty-five  were  of 
Jewish  or  Moorish  extraction. 

The  twenty-seven  guilty  men  were  denounced  as 
"  false  sons,  disturbers  of  the  common  peace,  and 
revolutionists  (architecti  rerum  novarum)  whose  punish- 
ment had  been  asked  for  by  many  provinces.  The 
congregation,  therefore,  while  grievously  bewailing  the 
loss  of  its  spiritual  sons,  was  nevertheless  compelled 
in  the  interests  of  domestic  union,  religious  obedience, 
and  the  perpetuation  of  the  Society,  to  employ  a  severe 
remedy  in  the  premises."  After  recounting  their 
charges  against  the  Society,  and  their  claim  to  be 
"  the  whole  Society,"  although  they  were  only  a  few 
"  degenerate  sons  "  the  decree  denounces  them  and 
their  accomplices  as  having  incurred  the  censures  and 
penalties  contained  in  the  Apostolic  Bulls,  and  orders 
them  to  be  expelled  from  the  Society.  "  If  for  one 
reason  or  another,  they  cannot  be  immediately  dis- 
missed they  were  declared  incapable  of  any  office  or 
dignity  and  denied  all  active  or  passive  voice."  It 
also  orders  that  "  those  suspected  of  being  parties  to 
such  machinations  shall  make  a  solemn  oath  to 
support  the  Constitution  as  approved  by  the  Popes, 
and  to  do  nothing  against  it.  If  they  refuse  to  take 
the  oath,  or  having  taken  it,  fail  to  keep  it,  they  are 
to  be  expelled,  even  if  old  and  professed." 

Aquaviva  had  thus  triumphed  all  along  the  line. 
He  had  not  only  saved  the  Institute,  but  had  received 
the  power  of  expelling  every  one  of  the  insurgents 
if  they  refused  the  oath  of  submission.  Acosta,  the 
leading  rebel,  was  one  of  the  chief  sufferers;  although 
he  was  the  representative  of  Philip  II,  he  was  struck, 
like  his  associates,  by  the  condemnation.  The  one 
who  was  punished,  most,  however,  was  Toletus,  who 
like  Acosta  had  a  Jewish  strain,  which  may  explain 
the  moroseness  which  the  delegates  remarked  when- 


The  Great  Storms  213 

ever  they  met  him,  and  also  his  complaints  that 
"  the  proceedings  of  the  Congregation  could  not  have 

been  worse that  it  had  treated  Philip  like 

a  valet." 

Toletus,  however,  continued  to  fight.  On  January 
12  he  advised  Aquaviva  to  propose  the  discussion  of 
a  change  of  assistants  and  a  sexennial  congregation. 
A  commission  was  immediately  formed  to  wait  on  the 
Pope,  but  it  failed  to  see  him;  whereupon  Toletus 
appeared  on  January  14  and  informed  the  General  that 
the  two  points  should  be  regarded  as  settled  with- 
out discussion.  Accordingly,  four  days  later,  new 
assistants  were  elected,  but  the  law  of  the  six-year 
convocations  became  a  dead  letter.  On  January  8 
Toletus  had  presented  a  document  to  the  Pontiff 
urging  nine  different  changes  in  the  Constitutions, 
adding  that  Philip  II  had  asked  for  them,  though  in 
reality  the  king  had  only  asked  that  they  should  be 
discussed.  Doubtless  Toletus  had  misunderstood. 
Fortunately,  the  Pope  would  not  admit  all  of  the  changes, 
but  suggested  to  the  congregation  four  harmless  ones 
—  first,  that  except  for  the  master  of  novices, 
the  term  of  office  should  be  three  years;  second,  that 
at  the  end  of  their  term  the  provincials  should  give  an 
account  of  their  administration;  third  that  the  papal 
reservations  should  be  observed;  and  fourth,  that  the 
assistants  should  have  a  deciding  vote.  The  three 
first  were  readily  accepted,  and  the  fourth  respectfully 
rejected.  The  remaining  business  was  then  expedited, 
and  the  congregation  adjourned  on  January  19,  1594. 

The  conspirators,  however,  had  not  yet  been  beaten. 
They  proposed  to  the  Pope  to  appoint  Aquaviva 
Archbishop  of  Capua.  Of  course,  Aquaviva  refused, 
and  then  it  was  cunningly  suggested  that  it  would  be 
an  excellent  thing  if  the  General,  in  the  interests  of 
unity  and  peace,  should  visit  the  Spanish  provinces. 


214  The  Jesuits 

Philip  III,  who  was  now  on  the  throne,  had  been 
approached,  and  he  wrote  to  the  Pope  to  that  effect. 
Clement  rather  favored  the  proposition,  but  Henry 
IV  of  France,  Sigismund  of  Poland  the  Archdukes 
Ferdinand  and  Matthias  and  other  German  princes 
protested.  Then  the  Pope  took  the  matter  under 
consideration,  but  before  he  reached  any  conclusion 
he  died,  and  the  plot  was  thus  thwarted. 

The  one  who  planned  this  visit  to  Spain  was  the 
plotter  Mendoza.  His  purpose  was  simply  to  humiliate 
the  General  by  confronting  him  with  the  king,  the 
greatest  nobles  of  the  realm  and  the  Inquisition,  and 
then  to  force  from  him  all  sorts  of  permissions  which 
were  in  direct  violation  of  the  methods  of  Jesuit  life. 
The  story,  as  it  appears  in  Astrain,  is  simply  amazing. 
Mendoza  had  actually  procured  from  the  Pope,  through 
the  magnates  of  Spain,  permission  to  receive  and 
spend  money  as  he  wished,  to  be  free  from  all  superiors, 
and  to  go  and  live  wherever  he  chose.  When  Aquaviva 
protested  to  the  Pope  that  such  permissions  were 
subversive  of  all  religious  discipline,  His  Holiness 
suggested  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  which  took 
every  one  by  surprise  —  Mendoza  was  made  Bishop 
of  Cuzco  in  Peru.  This  interference  of  rich  and  power- 
ful outsiders  in  the  family  life  of  the  Society,  as  well 
as  the  shameful  way  in  which  some  of  the  members 
sought  the  favor  of  men  of  great  influence  in  the  State 
may  explain  how,  after  the  angry  fulminations  of  the 
congregation  against  the  Spanish  plotters,  it  took 
several  years  to  get  even  a  few  of  them  out  of  the 
Society. 

The  dispute,  known  as  the  "  De  Auxiliis,"  which 
raged  with  great  theological  fury  for  many  years,  had 
for  its  object  the  reconciliation  of  Divine  grace  with 
human  freedom.  ' '  The  Dominicans  maintained  that  the 
difficulty  was  _solved  by  their  theory  of  physical  pre- 


The  Great  Storms  215 

motion  and  predetermination,  whereas  the  Jesuits 
found  the  explanation  of  it  in  the  Scientia  media  whereby 
God  knows  in  the  objective  reality  of  things  what  a  man 
would  do  in  any  circumstances  in  which  he  might  be 
placed.  The  Dominicans  declared  that  this  was  con- 
ceding too  much  to  free  will,  and  that  it  tended  towards 
Pelagianism,  while  the  Jesuits  complained  that  the 
Dominicans  did  not  sufficiently  safeguard  human 
liberty  and  hence  seemed  to  lean  towards  the  doctrines 
of  Calvin  "  (Astrain).  It  was  not  until  1588,  that  Luis 
de  Molina,  whose  name  is  chiefly  connected  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  Scientia  media,  got  into  the  fight.  Do- 
mingo Ibanez,  the  Dominican  professor  at  Salamanca, 
was  his  chief  antagonist.  The  debates  continued  for 
five  years,  and  by  that  time  there  were  public  disturb- 
ances in  several  Spanish  cities.  Clement  VIII  then 
took  the  matter  in  his  own  hands,  and  forbade  any 
further  discussion  till  the  Holy  See  had  decided  one 
way  or  the  other.  The  opinions  of  universities  and 
theologians  were  asked  for,  but  by  1602  no  conclusion 
had  been  arrived  at,  and  between  that  year  and  1605, 
sixty-eight  sessions  had  been  held  with  no  result.  Thus 
it  went  on  till  1607,  when  the  Pope  decided  that  both 
parties  might  hold  their  own  opinions,  but  that  each 
should  refrain  from  censuring  the  other.  In  1611,  by 
order  of  the  Pope,  the  Inquisition  issued  a  decree 
forbidding  the  publication  of  any  book  concerning 
efficacious  grace  until  further  action  by  the  Holy  See. 
The  prohibition  remained  in  force  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  principal  theo- 
logians who  appeared  on  the  Jesuit  side  of  this  contro- 
versy were  Toletus,  Bellarmine,  Lessius,  Molina, 
Padilla,  Valencia,  Arubal,  Bastida  and  Salas. 

While  these  constitutional  and  theological  wars  were 
at  their  height  a  discussion  of  quite  another  kind  was 
going  on  in  the  immediate  surroundings  of  the  General. 


216  The  Jesuits 

It  was  to  determine  what  amount  of  prayer  and 
penitential  exercises  should  be  the  normal  practice 
of  the  Society.  Maggio  and  Alarcon,  two  of  the 
assistants,  were  for  long  contemplations  and  great 
austerities,  while  Hoffaeus  and  Emmanuel  Rodrigues 
advocated  more  sobriety  in  those  two  matters.  Aqua- 
viva  decided  for  a  middle  course,  declaring  that  the 
Society  was  not  established  especially  for  prayer  and 
mortification,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  could  not 
endure  without  a  moderate  use  of  these  two  means  of 
Christian  perfection.  As  this  was  coincident  with  the 
Spanish  troubles,  these  five  holy  men  were  like  the  old 
Roman  senators  who  were  speculating  on  the  improve- 
ment of  the  land  which  was  still  occupied  by  the 
Carthaginian  armies.  Meantime,  another  storm  was 
sweeping  over  the  Society  in  France. 

When  Henry  IV  entered  Paris  in  triumph,  his  former 
enemies,  the  Sorbonne  and  the  parliament,  hastened 
to  pay  him  homage;  but  something  had  to  be  done  to 
make  the  public  forget  their  previous  attitude  in  his 
regard.  The  usual  device  was  resorted  to  of  denouncing 
the  Jesuits.  A  complaint  was  manufactured  against 
the  College  of  Clermont,  about  the  infringement  of 
someone's  property  rights,  and  the  rector  was  haled 
to  court  to  answer  the  charge.  The  orator  for  the 
plaintiffs  was  Antoine  Arnauld,  the  father  of  the  famous 
Antoine  and  Angelique,  who  were  to  be,  later  on, 
conspicuous  figures  in  the  Jansenist  heresy.  Absolutely 
disregarding  the  point  at  issue,  Arnauld  launched  out 
in  a  fierce  diatribe  against  the  Jesuits  in  general; 
"  those  trumpets  of  war,"  he  called  them,  "  those 
torches  of  sedition;  those  roaring  tempests  that  are 
perpetually  disturbing  the  calm  heavens  of  France. 
They  are  Spaniards,  enemies  of  the  state,  the  authors 
of  all  the  excesses  of  the  League,  whose  Bacchanalian 
and  Catalinian  orgies  were  held  in  the  Jesuit  college 


The  Great  Storms  217 

and  church.  The  Society  is  the  workshop  of  Satan, 
and  is  filled  with  traitors  and  scoundrels,  assassins 
of  kings  and  public  parricides.  Who  slew  Henry  III? 
The  Jesuits.  Ah,  my  King!"  he  cried,  "when  I 
contemplate  thy  bloody  shirt,  tears  flow  from  my  eyes 
and  choke  my  utterance."  And  yet  every  one  knew 
that  it  was  his  own  clients,  the  Sorbonne  and  the 
parliament,  who  were  the  centre  of  all  "  the  orgies 
of  the  League  ";  that  it  was  they  who  had  glorified 
the  assassin  of  Henry  III  as  a  hero,  and  made  the 
anniversary  of  his  murder  a  public  holiday;  that  it 
was  they  who  had  heaped  abuse  on  Henry  IV,  and  had 
sworn  that  he  never  should  ascend  the  throne  of 
France,  even  if  he  were  absolved  from  heresy  by  the 
Pope,  and  had  returned  to  the  Faith.  The  travesty 
of  truth  in  this  discourse  is  so  glaring  that  Frenchmen 
often  refer  to  it  as  "  the  second  original  sin  of  the 
Arnauld  family,"  the  source,  namely,  of  its  ineradicable 
habit  of  misrepresentation. 

A  short  time  after  this,  Jean  Chastel  struck  Henry  IV 
with  a  knife  and  cut  him  slightly  on  the  lip.  Immedi- 
ately everyone  recalled  Arnauld 's  furious  denunciation 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  a  descent  was  made  on  the  college. 
A  scrap  of  paper  was  conveniently  found  in  the  library, 
incriminating  the  custodian,  but  the  volumes  upon 
volumes  of  denunciations  which  had  been  uttered  in 
the  university  and  in  parliament,  and  which  were  piled 
upon  the  library  shelves,  were  not  discovered.  The 
scrap  of  paper  sufficed.  The  college  was  immediately 
confiscated,  the  inmates  expelled  from  France,  and 
after  Jean  Chastel  had  been  torn  asunder  by  four 
horses,  Father  Gueret  was  stretched  on  the  rack  and 
Father  Guignard  was  hanged.  This  occurred  at  the 
end  of  December,  1594. 

Up  to  this  Henry  IV  had  not  yet  been  reconciled  to 
the  Church,  for  the  Pope  doubted  his  sincerity  and 


218  The  Jesuits 

refused  to  withdraw  the  excommunication  which  the 
king  had  incurred  at  the  time  of  his  relapse.  At  last, 
however,  owing  to  the  persistency  of  Father  Possevin 
and  of  Cardinal  Toletus,  he  was  absolved  from  his 
heresy,  and  could  be  acknowledged,  with  a  safe  con- 
science by  all  Catholics,  as  the  legitimate  King  of 
France.  The  action  of  Toletus  in  this  matter  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
Spaniard,  and  in  espousing  the  cause  of  Henry  he  was 
turning  his  back  on  his  own  sovereign,  who  was  using 
all  his  power  to  prevent  the  reconciliation.  This 
service  was  publicly  recognized  by  Henry  who  thanked 
the  Cardinal  for  his  courageous  act,  and  when  Toletus 
died  elaborate  obsequies  were  held  by  the  king's  orders 
in  the  cathedrals  of  Paris  and  Rheims.  Of  course,  the 
appeal  of  the  banished  Jesuits  was  then  readily  listened 
to  by  the  king.  He  restored  Clermont  to  them ;  gave 
them  other  colleges,  including  the  royal  establishment 
of  La  Fleche,  and  was  forever  after  their  devoted 
helper  and  friend.  It  must  have  been  a  great  con- 
solation for  Father  Aquaviva,  during  the  battle  he  was 
waging  and  from  which  he  was  to  emerge  triumphant, 
to  be  told  of  this  support  of  Henry;  and  also  to  hear 
of  the  welcome  the  Society  had  received  in  loyal 
Belgium  in  spite  of  the  persistent  animosity  of  Louvain. 
Almost  every  city  had  been  asking  for  a  college. 

About  this  time,  the  Jesuits  lost  a  devoted  friend  in 
the  person  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  who  died  in  1584. 
It  is  a  calumny  to  say  that  he  had  turned  against  them 
and  had  taken  the  seminary  of  Milan  from  their 
direction.  It  was  they  themselves  who  had  asked  to 
be  relieved  of  the  responsibility,  for  he  had  so  multiplied 
their  colleges  in  his  diocese,  that  it  was  impossible  to 
give  the  seminary  the  attention  it  required.  It  is  true 
that  he  was  greviously  offended  by  one  individual 
Jesuit  who  injected  himself  into  a  controversy  that 


The  Great  Storms  219 

was  going  on  between  the  governor  and  the  archbishop, 
and  assailed  the  great  prelate  in  the  pulpit  of  the  very 
church  which  had  been  given  to  the  Society  by 
Borromeo;  but  Aquaviva  quickly  brought  him  to  the 
cardinal's  feet  to  ask  forgiveness,  and  then  suspended 
him  for  two  years  from  preaching.  That  incident,  how- 
ever, in  no  way  diminished  the  affection  of  the  saint  for 
the  Society.  His  last  Mass  was  said  in  the  Jesuit  noviti- 
ate which  he  had  founded,  and  he  died  in  the  arms  of  his 
Jesuit  confessor,  Father  Adorno,  two  days  afterwards. 

Seven  years  later,  on  June  .-21,  1591,  another  saint 
died,  the  young  Aloysius  Gonzaga.  Borromeo  knew 
him  well,  and  had  given  him  his  first  Communion. 
This  boy  saint  was  not  only  an  angel  of  purity,  but 
also  a  martyr  of  charity,  for  he  died  of  a  fever  he  had 
caught  from  the  victims  of  a  plague  whom  he  was 
attending  during  a  pestilence  that  devastated  Italy. 
The  venerable  Bellarmine  was  his  confessor  and 
spiritual  father,  and,  later,  when  he  was  about  to 
expire,  he  said  to  those  around  him:  "  Bury  me  at  the 
feet  of  Aloysius  Gonzaga." 

There  was  still  another  trouble  before  Aquaviva,  for 
while  the  disturbances  wrere  going  on  in  France  and 
Spain,  a  storm  arose  in  Venice.  The  Society  had  been 
expelled  from  the  republic;  but  it  is  to  its  credit  to 
have  been  hated  by  the  government  that  ruled  Venice 
at  that  time.  The  republic  had  become  embroiled 
with  the  Holy  See,  and  war  was  imminent.  The  Pope 
put  the  city  under  interdict,  and  as  the  Jesuits  who 
were  established  there  submitted  to  the  injunction, 
they  were  all  exiled;  their  property  was  confiscated, 
and  they  were  forbidden  ever  to  return.  This  treat- 
ment was  in  keeping  with  the  traditions  of  the  govern- 
ment of  "  a  republic,"  as  some  me  had  said,  "  which 
in  reality  was  a  monarchy  tempered  by  assassination." 
Hallam  (Hist,  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages,  iii, 


220  The  Jesuits 

144)  insists  that  "  it  had  all  the  pomp  of  a  monarchy; 
and  its  commerce  with  the  Mohammedans  had  dead- 
ened its  sense  of  religious  antipathy."  Its  action  in 
this  instance  is  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  the  Servite 
friar,  Paolo  Sarpi,  whom  the  apostate  Bishop  de  Dominis 
and  Duplessis-Mornay,  the  chief  of  the  French  Hugue- 
nots at  that  time,  describe  as  "  another  Calvin."  He 
was  in  league  with  the  Dutch  and  English  to  create  a 
schism  by  defying  the  Pope,  and  to  convert  Venice  into 
a  Protestant  republic.  He  is  also  the  author  of  the 
virulent  and  calumnious  "  History  of  the  Council  of 
Trent." 

Henry  IV  of  France  interested  himself  in  this 
quarrel,  and  finally  succeeded  in  having  the  papal  and 
Venetian  representatives  meet  to  discuss  their  griev- 
ances. After  protracted  negotiations,  the  republic 
finally  came  to  terms,  but  on  one  condition,  namely 
that  the  Jesuits  should  not  be  allowed  to  return.  As 
both  the  Pope  and  Henry  absolutely  refused  to  admit 
that  clause,  a  deadlock  ensued,  until  Aquaviva  declared 
himself  unwilling  to  allow  any  such  difficulty  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  reconciliation:  and  as  a  consequence, 
the  Society  did  not  return  to  Venice  until  after  fifty 
years  of  exile.  Henry,  however,  had  his  revenge  on 
Sarpi.  He  intercepted  a  letter  written  by  a  minister  of 
Geneva  to  a  Calvinist  in  Paris  which  revealed  the  fact 
that  the  Doge  and  several  senators  had  already  made 
arrangements  to  introduce  the  Reformation  into 
Venice;  and  that  Sarpi  and  his  associate,  Fulgenzio, 
had  formed  a  secret  society  of  more  than  a  thousand 
persons,  among  whom  were  three  hundred  patricians, 
who  were  merely  awaiting  the  signal  to  abandon  the 
Church  (Daru,  Hist,  de  la  republique  de  Venise). 
The  letter  was  read  in  the  Senate,  and  many  a  guilty 
face  grew  pale.  That  was  the  end  of  Sarpi's  influence. 
It  was,  probably  also  Henry  IV  -who  prevented  him 


The  Great  Storms  221 

from  going  to  England  when  the  friar  wrote  to 
Casaubon  to  provide  him  a  home  there  in  case  he 
had  to  leave  Venice.  In  view  of  all  that  Henry  IV 
had  done  for  the  Society,  the  sixth  general  congre- 
gation voted  unanimously  and  enthusiastically  to 
establish  a  French  assistancy  in  the  Society  as  an 
expression  of  gratitude  to  the  monarch. 

In  Mexico  the  storm  evoked  by  Palafox  did  not, 
it  is  true,  result  in  expulsions,  confiscations  and  execu- 
tions as  elsewhere,  nevertheless  it  was  deadly  in  its 
effects;  and  a  century  later  it  furnished  the  Jansenists 
of  Europe  with  an  exhaustless  supply  of  calumnies 
against  the  Society.  Its  arraignment  by  Palafox  was 
particularly  efficacious  because  it  expressed  the  mind 
of  a  distinguished  functionary  of  the  Church  who  was 
held  by  some  to  be  a  saint  and  whose  canonization 
was  insisted  on  by  the  politicians  and  nobility  of  Spain. 

The  character  of  this  extraordinary  personage  has 
always  been  a  mystery,  and  perhaps  it  would  have 
been  better  or,  at  least,  more  comfortable  to  have 
left  it  in  its  shroud  instead  of  revealing  the  truth  about 
his  life.  He  tells  us  himself  in  his  "  Vida  interior  " 
that  his  university  days  were  wild ;  but  though  the  text 
is  explicit  enough,  it  may  be  a  pious  exaggeration. 
In  1628  occurred  what  he  calls  his  conversion.  He 
made  a  general  confession  and  determined  to  embrace 
an  ecclesiastical  career.  His  preparation  for  it  was 
amazingly  brief,  and  we  find  him  soon  occupying  the 
post  of  grand  almoner  of  the  Princess  Mary,  whom 
he  accompanied  to  Germany.  On  his  return  to  Spain, 
he  resumed  his  occupation  as  fiscal,  and  in  1639  was 
consecrated  Bishop  of  Puebla  in  Mexico  and,  in  the 
following  year,  was  sent  to  America  with  the  most 
extravagant  plenipotentiary  powers.  Besides  being 
Bishop  of  Puebla,  he  was  simultaneously  administrator 
of  the  vacant  see  of  the  city  of  Mexico  and  visitor  of 


222  The  Jesuits 

the  audiencia  of  the  colony,  with  the  absolute  right  to 
depose  any  civil  official  whom  he  judged  unsuitable. 

He  did  not  wait  long  to  exercise  his  power,  and  in 
1641,  to  the  consternation  of  everyone,  he  flung  out 
of  office  no  less  a  personage  than  the  viceroy  himself 
who  was  universally  esteemed  for  his  upright  and 
virtuous  life.  By  this  extraordinary  act,  Palafox 
became  practically  viceroy  and  captain  general,  while 
retaining  his  ecclesiastical  dignities.  In  a  few  months, 
however,  the  new  viceroy,  Salvatierra,  arrived.  Palafox 
was  soon  to  clash  with  him  also,  by  blocking  all  the 
official  work  of  the  audiencia;  holding  up  despatches, 
delaying  decisions,  absenting  himself  from  the  city, 
etc.  For  five  years  complaints  against  him  poured 
into  Spain  but  without  effecting  any  change.  Sal- 
vatierra even  accused  him  of  malversation  in  office, 
particularly  in  its  finances  and  added  that  his  whole 
occupation  seemed  to  consist  in  writing  the  Life  of 
St.  Peter.  His  ecclesiastical  government  was  no  less 
disorderly.  To  gain  the  favor  of  those  around  him  he 
transformed  the  Indian  missions  into  parishes  and  put 
them  in  charge  of  priests  who  were  absolutely  ignorant 
both  of  the  habits  and  language  of  the  natives.  The 
motive  back  of  this  change  was  that  as  mere  mission 
posts  the  Indian  settlements  paid  no  tithes. 

During  all  this  time  he  continued  to  proclaim  him- 
self a  friend  of  the  Jesuits,  but  in  1641  when  a  canon  of 
the  cathedral  wanted  to  make  over  a  farm  to  the 
College  of  Vera  Cruz,  he  was  forbidden  to  do  so  under 
pain  of  excommunication  unless  the  property  was 
made  subject  to  tithes.  When  the  canon  submitted  the 
case  to  the  audiencia  he  of  course,  lost  it,  because  Pala- 
fox was  the  visitor  of  that  tribunal.  A  further  appeal 
was  then  made  to  the  council  of  the  Indies,  but  after 
two  years  of  litigation  the  case  was  dropped  without 
a  decision.  In  the  course  of  this  contest,  Palafox 


The  Great  Storms  223 

wrote  in  his  plea  that  the  Jesuits  were  enormously 
wealthy,  while  the  cathedral  of  Puebla  was  destitute 
of  resources.  When  Father  Calderon  refuted  these 
assertions,  the  bishop  was  wrought  up  to  fury  and 
laid  down  as  a  diocesan  rule  that,  under  pain  of  excom- 
munication, no  property  transfers  could  be  made  to 
religious  orders  unless  this  tithe  clause  was  inserted, 
and  he  enjoined  that  the  sick  and  dying  should  be 
admonished  of  that  censure.  He  followed  this  up  by 
sending  an  order  to  all  the  Jesuits  to  deliver  up  their 
faculties  for  inspection  within  twenty-four  hours, 
under  penalty  of  excommunication.  Their  reply  was 
that  they  would  have  to  refer  the  matter  to  the  pro- 
vincial. This  was,  according  to  Astrain,  a  grave  act 
of  imprudence  on  the  part  of  the  Fathers,  and  such, 
later  on,  was  the  ruling  of  the  Roman  Congregation 
and  of  the  Pope  himself. 

Of  course,  in  the  rigor  of  the  law  the  bishop  had  an 
absolute  right  to  demand  the  faculties  of  all  the  priests 
of  his  diocese,  but  in  the  concrete  it  is  hard  to  blame 
the  action  of  the  Fathers  in  this  instance.  They  did 
not  refuse,  but  merely  wanted  time  to  lay  the  case 
before  their  superior.  Moreover,  the  action  of  the 
bishop  was  altogether  out  of  the  ordinary.  Up  to 
that  time,  his  own  confessor  was  a  Jesuit,  and  faculties 
had  been  issued  by  the  bishop  to  several  others  of  the 
Society;  during  his  incumbency  he  had  employed 
them  in  various  missions  of  the  diocese,  he  had  invited 
them  to  preach  in  his  cathedral;  and,  indeed,  they 
had  been  using  their  faculties  to  confess  and  preach 
ever  since  1572.  It  is  true  that  some  of  their  original 
privileges  had  been  modified  or  curtailed,  but  in  these 
two  principal  functions  no  radical  change  had  been 
made.  Might  they  not  then  have  thought  that,  in 
view  of  what  the  bishop  had  already  done  both  in 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  he  was  mentally 


224  The  Jesuits 

deranged?  The  average  man  of  the  world  would  have 
arrived  at  that  conclusion. 

At  all  events,  the  faculties  were  not  forthcoming 
within  the  twenty-four  hours,  and  all  the  Jesuit  priests 
of  Puebla  not  only  found  themselves  dishonored  and 
disgraced  by  being  held  up  to  the  people  as  excommuni- 
cated, but  by  this  act  of  the  bishop  doubt  was  thrown 
upon  the  validity  of  all  the  absolutions  they  had 
given  in  the  administration  of  the  sacrament  of  Penance. 
Astrain  tells  us  that  Father  Legaspi  attempted  to 
preach  in  the  Jesuit  church,  and  when  forbidden  to  do 
so  by  a  messenger  from  the  bishop's  palace,  refused 
to  obey,  but  apart  from  the  fact  that  this  would  be 
in  absolute  contradiction  with  the  traditional  instincts 
and  training  of  any  Jesuit,  Astrain  himself  relates 
in  the  following  chapter  that  the  Roman  Congregation 
which  examined  the  whole  miserable  quarrel  decided 
that  Legaspi 's  sermon  was  delivered  before  and  not 
after  the  prohibition.  Recourse  was  then  had  to  a 
privilege  accorded  to  the  Spanish  colonies  of  con- 
stituting a  commission  of  judges  to  consider  and  decide 
the  case.  This  also  was  subsequently  condemned  by 
the  Roman  Congregation  and  by  Innocent  X,  but 
on  the  other  hand,  communication  with  Rome  was 
difficult  in  those  days,  and  the  course  entered  upon 
was  taken  with  the  approval  of  the  heads  of  other 
religious  orders,  of  the  viceroy  and  of  the  cdbildo  or 
mayor.  It  is  true  that  efforts  should  have  been  made 
to  placate  the  angry  prelate,  but  the  documents  show 
that  the  most  humble  supplications  had  been  made 
to  him  only  to  be  repulsed  with  abuse. 

It  would  have  been  futile  to  refer  the  case  to  the 
audiencia,  for  Palafox  controlled  it  absolutely.  More- 
over, it  was  urged  that  the  plea  presented  to  the  com- 
mission did  not  regard  merely  the  wholesale  suspension 
and  excommunication,  but  other  grievances  as  well. 


The  Great  Storms  225 

There  were  twenty-nine  in  all.  The  commission 
brought  in  a  verdict  against  the  bishop,  but  he  refused 
to  recognize  the  authority  and  even  excommunicated 
the  members  of  the  court  who,  with  what  Father 
General  Caraffa  described  as  an  "  exorbitantia  grande," 
had  excommunicated  the  prelate.  Then  the  whole 
city  was  in  an  uproar  and  Palafox  rode  through  the 
throngs  of  the  excited  populace  conjuring  them  to 
keep  the  peace,  but  at  the  same  time  preventing  it  by 
proceeding  to  the  cathedral,  and,  amid  the  most 
lugubrious  ceremonies  and  in  full  pontificals,  excom- 
municating all  his  opponents.  The  Mexican  Inqui- 
sition now  intervened  and  enjoined  silence  on  all 
parties.  Salvatierra,  the  viceroy,  also  helped  to  quell 
the  disturbance.  Nevertheless,  on  June  6,  Palafox 
issued  another  proclamation  declaring  that  his  enemies 
had  been  assembling  arms  in  their  houses,  and  'were 
bent  on  getting  control  of  the  country.  He  again  made 
a  public  appearance  in  the  streets  of  Mexico,  but  two 
days  afterwards  he  submitted  the  whole  matter  to 
the  viceroy. 

Salvatierra  then  implored  him  with  the  greatest 
respect  and  kindness  to  restore  tranquillity  and  peace 
to  the  distracted  colony,  but  on  June  15,  Palafox 
disappeared  from  the  city;  and  no  one  knew  whither 
he  had  gone.  It  was  officially  reported  later  on,  that 
he  had  betaken  himself  first  to  the  hacienda  of  Juan  de 
Vergus,  but  after  two  days  had  disappeared  again. 
For  two  months  his  whereabouts  could  not  be  ascer- 
tained, but  in  a  letter  to  the  Pope,  he  described  himself 
as  wandering  for  ten  days  in  the  forest  and  mountains 
without  shelter  or  food,  and  exposed  to  death  from 
serpents  and  wild  beasts.  He  called  himself  another 
Athanasius.  Finally  he  returned  to  the  original 
hacienda  and  remained  there  until  November.  Before 
his  departure,  he  had  empowered  the  cabildo  to  have 
is 


226  The  Jesuits 

the  diocese  administered  by  three  ecclesiastics  whom 
he  designated;  but  one  of  them  was  imprisoned  by  the 
viceroy,  and  the  two  others  refused  to  serve.  Where- 
upon, the  cabildo  called  a  meeting  at  the  city  hall. 
Alonzo  Salazar  de  Baraona  presided  and  the  Jesuits 
were  ordered  to  display  their  faculties,  which  they  did; 
they  were  then  declared  rightful  ministers  of  the 
sacraments. 

During  his  retirement  Palafox  had  received  two 
letters  from  Spain,  one  deposing  him  from  his  office  of 
visitor,  and  another  announcing  the  transfer  of  Sal- 
vatierra  to  Peru.  The  first  was  the  reverse  of  pleasant, 
but  the  second  was  a  source  of  great  satisfaction  for, 
if  we  are  to  believe  Salvatierra,  Palafox  had  aspirations 
for  the  viceregal  office.  Possibly  with  that  in  view, 
he  willingly  assented  to  the  conditions  on  which  he 
was  to  be  allowed  to  re-enter  his  diocese,  namely  to 
regard  as  binding  all  that  had  been  done  in  his  absence. 
It  was  fully  nine  months  before  Salvatierra  left  Mexico, 
and  during  all  that  time  there  was  peace  in  Puebla; 
but  hostilities  were  resumed  immediately  afterwards. 
Palafox  refused  to  be  bound  by  his  contract  with 
Salvatierra;  he  declared  the  acts  of  the  commission  to 
be  null  and  void,  reasserted  the  invalidity  of  the 
Jesuit  faculties,  and  put  three  of  his  own  canons  in 
jail.  In  September,  he  received  a  brief  from  the  Pope 
which  he  regarded  as  a  justification  of  all  that  had  been 
done.  In  the  main,  the  document  asserted  the  funda- 
mental right  of  the  bishop  to  examine  the  faculties  of 
the  priests  and  condemned  the  proceedings  of  the 
commission.  Whereupon  twelve  of  the  Fathers  sub- 
mitted their  faculties  to  the  bishop.  But  that  did  not 
satisfy  him.  He  insisted  on  the  Jesuits  appearing 
in  public  in  a  penitential  garb,  as  at  an  auto-da-fe, 
and  receiving  from  him  a  solemn  absolution  from  their 
excommunication.  He  also  made  it  a  matter  of  con- 


The  Great  Storms  227 

fession  for  the  faithful  to  have  been  absolved  by  Jesuits 
or  to  have  listened  to  their  sermons. 

From  this  odious  ruling  an  appeal  was  taken  to  the 
royal  council;  whereupon  Palafox  despatched  three 
letters  to  the  Pope,  j  The  first  was  about  the  parochial 
rights  of  the  other  religious  orders;  the  second  com- 
plaining of  the  silver  mines,  vast  haciendas  and  wealth 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  the  third  consisting  of  fifty-eight 
pages  of  the  most  atrocious  calumnies  ever  written  by 
a  Catholic,  and  asking  finally  that  they  should  be  made 
like  other  religious  orders  with  choir,  cloister,  etc. 
Ten  years  later,  the  General  of  the  Discalced  Carmelites 
inquired  of  Palafox  why  he  wrote  these  letters.  "  I 
did  so,"  he  says,  "  because  I  was  incensed  against  the 
Jesuits  for  not  treating  me  with  proper  respect,  but 
I  am  surprised  that  I  have  lost  their  affection  and  was 
not  aware  of  it  till  now  ."  At  last,  wearied  of  it  all, 
Philip  IV  ordered  him  to  return  to  Spain  immediately, 
but  he  obeyed  in  a  very  leisurely  fashion.  In  Rome, 
the  case  dragged  on  for  four  more  years  and  finally 
a  verdict  was  rendered  affirming  among  other  things 
that  the  Fathers  had  been  properly  provided  with 
faculties,  and  had  ceased  to  preach  and  hear  confessions 
when  ordered  to  do  so.  The  only  censure  they  received 
was  for  having  convoked  the  commission  to  judge  the 
case  in  the  absence  of  the  bishop.  The  trouble  had 
lasted  for  sixteen  years,  but  it  created  a  deep  prejudice 
against  the  Society  a  century  later. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ASIATIC    CONTINENT 

The  Great  Mogul  —  Rudolph  Aquaviva  —  Jerome  Xavier  —  de 
Nobili  —  de  Britto  —  Beschi — The  Pariahs  —  Entering  Thibet  — 
From  Peking  to  Europe  —  Mingrelia,  Paphlagonia  and  Chaldea  — 
The  Maronites  —  Alexander  de  Rhodes  —  Ricci  enters  China  —  From 
Agra  to  Peking  —  Adam  Schall  —  Arrival  of  the  Tatars  —  Persecutions 
—  Schall  condemned  to  Death  —  Verbiest  —  de  Tournon's  Visit  — 
The  French  Royal  Mathematicians  —  Avril's  Journey. 

AT  the  very  time  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  putting 
Jesuits  to  death  in  England,  there  was  a  remarkable 
pagan  monarch  reigning  in  what  is  now  part  of  English 
India,  who  was  inviting  Jesuits  to  his  court  and  making 
them  his  friends.  His  name  was  Akbar,  and  he  is 
known  in  history  as  the  Great  Mogul.  He  was  born 
in  1542,  and  ruled  four  years  longer  than  the  forceful 
Eliza.  She  was  queen  from  1558  to  1603;  he  was 
king  from  1556  to  1605.  Akbar  appears  first  as  the 
ruler  of  the  Punjab  and  the  country  around  Delhi  and 
Agra;  but  in  1572  he  drove  the  Afghans  out  of  Bengal, 
and  reunited  the  lower  valley  of  the  Ganges  to  Hindo- 
stan.  Later,  he  annexed  Cabul,  Kashmir,  Sind  and 
Kandahar.  He  was  a  mighty  warrior,  but  remarkable 
likewise  as  a  civil  ruler,  the  proof  in  this  case  being 
that  he  levied  more  money  in  taxes  than  England 
extracts  at  the  present  day  from  the  same  territory. 
He  was  very  much  interested  in  religious  matters, 
and  Christianity  appealed  to  him,  because  one  of  his 
numerous  wives  had  been  a  Christian;  but  he  fancied 
that  it  was  part  of  a  general  system  which  could  be 
incorporated  in  a  new  cult  which  he  had  devised  to 
conciliate  the  conflicting  creeds  of  his  realm.  His  own 
personal  devotion  was  sun-worship,  and  he  appeared 


The  Asiatic  Continent  229 

every  morning  in  public,  devoutly  offering  up  his 
orisons  to  the  god  of  day.  He  fancied  it  was  the  world- 
soul  that  animates  all  things,  a  concrete  form  of  one 
of  the  illusions  of  the  present  time. 

At  the  invitation  of  Akbar,  Rudolph  Aquaviva, 
accompanied  by  Anthony  Montserrat  and  Francisco 
Henriques,  left  Goa  in  1579,  to  present  himself 
at  his  court  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  to 
him  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Faith.  He 
listened  with  pleasure  and  intelligence,  but  his 
interest  was  purely  academic.  As  with  other  Oriental 
despots,  nothing  practical  could  be  hoped  for,  on 
account  of  the  harem.  Seeing  that  it  was  lost  time  to 
remain  there,  Aquaviva  returned  to  Goa,  and  was 
then  sent  down  to  the  peninsula  of  Salsette,  as  superior 
of  the  mission  established  at  that  place.  His  stay 
there  was  not  a  long  one,  for  on  July  15,  1583,  he  and 
Alfonso  Pacheco  were  attacked  by  the  natives  and 
cut  to  pieces.  Fathers  Pietro  Berno,  Antonio  Francisco 
and  Francisco  Aranha,  a  lay-brother,  together  with 
twenty  of  their  neophytes  were  included  in  the  massacre. 

Hearing  of  the  tragedy,  the  Great  Mogul  despatched 
an  embassy  to  the  viceroy  and  to  the  superior  of  the 
Jesuits  to  express  his  sympathy,  and  also  to  urge  that 
other  missionaries  might  be  sent  to  instruct  his  people. 
In  compliance  with  the  request,  Jeronimo  Xavier,  a 
nephew  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  was  sent  there  in  1595 
and  succeeded  in  winning  the  favor  of  Akbar.  The 
"  Encyclopedia  Britannica  "  informs  us  that  Jeronimo, 
at  the  suggestion  of  the  monarch,  translated  the  four 
Gospels  into  Persian.  Ranke  adds  in  his  "  History  of 
the  Popes"  that  "while  the  Jesuit  was  there  the 
insurrections  of  the  Mahometans  contributed  to  dispose 
the  emperor  towards  the  Christians,  for  in  the  year 
1599  Christmas  was  celebrated  at  Lahore  with  the 
utmost  solemnity.  The  manger  and  the  leading  facts 


230  The  Jesuits 

of  the  Nativity  were  represented  for  twenty  days 
consecutively,  and  numerous  catechumens  proceeded 
to  the  Church  with  palms  in  their  hands  to  receive 
baptism.  The  emperor  read,  with  great  pleasure,  a 
'  Life  of  Christ  '  composed  in  Persian,  and  a  picture 
of  the  Virgin,  copied  from  the  Madonna  del  Popolo 
in  Rome,  was  by  his  orders  taken  to  the  palace  that 
he  might  show  it  to  the  women  of  his  household.  It 
is  true  that  the  Christians  drew  more  favourable 
conclusions  from  these  things  than  the  facts  justified; 
still,  great  progress  was  really  made.  Indeed,  after 
the  death  of  Akbar,  three  princes  of  the  blood  royal 
were  solemnly  baptized.  They  rode  to  the  church  on 
white  elephants,  and  were  received  with  the  sound 
of  trumpets,  kettle-drums  and  martial  music.  This 
took  place  in  1610,  so  that  Christianity  seemed  grad- 
ually to  acquire  a  position  of  a  fixed  character,  although 
suffering  from  certain  vicissitudes  and  the  prevalence 
of  fickleness  in  the  matter  of  religious  opinion.  Political 
considerations,  also,  largely  affected  the  public  mind. 
In  1621  a  college  was  founded  in  Agra,  and  a  station 
established  at  Patna.  In  1624  hopes  were  entertained 
that  the  Emperor  Jehanguire  would  himself  become  a 
Christian." 

Shortly  after  Jer6nimo  Xavier  had  settled  down  in 
the  court  of  the  Great  Mogul,  Father  Robert  de  Nobili, 
a  nephew  of  Cardinal  Bellarrnine,  broke  through  the 
caste  barrier  in  India  in  a  way  that,  for  a  time,  gave 
considerable  scandal.  He  had  gone  to  the  mission  of 
Madura,  a  territory  somewhat  in  the  interior  towards 
the  northeast  of  the  Fisheries,  and  found  there  that 
Father  Fernandes,  a  very  pious  and  energetic  missioner 
who  had  been  living  for  fourteen  years  among  his 
pagans,  had  never  made  a  convert,  as  he  could  not 
get  in  touch  with  the  influential  people  of  the  country. 
Two  difficulties  stood  in  the  way:  first,  he  was  a  Portu- 


The  Asiatic  Continent  231 

guese  or  a  Prangui,  and  the  Prangui  were  held  in 
abhorrence,  because  they  ate  meat  and  drank  wine; 
secondly,  he  mingled  with  the  most  degraded  castes 
of  India. 

De  Nobili  determined  to  get  rid  of  these  obstacles. 
First,  he  insisted,  that  he  was  not  a  Prangui  but  a 
Roman  nobleman  in  name  and  in  fact;  secondly,  with 
regard  to  wine  and  meat,  he  would  abstain  from  them 
and  live  on  rice ;  thirdly,  he  would  become  a  Brahmin, 
as  far  as  their  manner  of  life  and  dress  was  concerned, 
and,  morever,  he  would  outdo  them  in  the  knowledge 
of  their  own  language,  literature  and  religion.  Indeed, 
within  a  year,  he  was  master  of  Tamil,  Telugu  and 
Sanskrit.  He  was  now  equipped  for  his  work,  and  in 
1606  he  bade  good-bye  to  Fernandes,  and  shut  himself 
up  in  a  hut  which,  for  a  long  time,  no  one  was  allowed 
to  enter.  He  wanted  the  news  to  spread  among  the 
natives  that  a  great  European  Brahmin  had  made 
his  appearance.  Curiosity,  he  said,  would  do  the  rest, 
for  his  rigid  seclusion  would  make  them  all  the  more 
intent  on  seeing  him.  The  scheme  succeeded,  and 
when,  at  last,  visitors  were  admitted  to  speak  to  him, 
they  found  him  to  be  even  holier  in  appearance  than 
they  had  imagined  him  to  be,  and  were  amazed  to 
hear  him  converse  in  Tamil,  and  show  a  perfect 
acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  the  language.  He 
made  it  a  point,  also,  to  recite  and  even  to  sing  the 
songs  of  their  poets,  for  he  was  an  able  musician  and 
had  a  good  voice. 

When  his  reputation  was  established  he  began  to 
discuss  some  of  the  truths  of  fundamental  theology, 
not  as  coming  from  himself,  but  which,  as  he  showed 
them,  were  actually  set  down  in  their  own  Vedas. 
His  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  —  perhaps  he  was  the  first 
European  to  venture  into  that  field  —  had  given  him 
a  more  thorough  knowledge  of  the  sacred  books  than 


232  The  Jesuits 

was  possessed  by  any  of  the  Brahmins  themselves, 
and  hence  it  happened  that,  before  a  year  had  passed, 
he  had  baptized  several  persons  who  were  conspicuous 
both  for  their  nobility  and  learning.  He  permitted  his 
converts  to  continue  to  besmear  their  foreheads  with 
sandal-wood  paste,  to  cultivate  the  tuft  of  hair  on 
the  top  of  their  heads,  and  to  wear  a  string  on  the 
left  shoulder.  He  did  this  after  he  had  thoroughly 
convinced  himself  that  there  was  no  superstition  in 
such  practices.  Meantime  he  was  living  on  milk,  rice, 
herbs  and  water,  which  were  handed  to  him  once  a  day 
by  the  servant  of  a  Brahmin.  It  was  a  precaution  to 
forestall  any  suspicion  that  other  food  was  supplied 
surreptitiously. 

In  the  second  year,  his  flock  was  so  numerous  that 
the  hut  he  lived  in  was  insufficient  to  contain  them  all, 
and  he  had  to  build  a  church.  That,  of  course,  caused 
some  alarm  among  the  Brahmins,  but  it  was  nothing 
in  comparison  to  the  storm  that  de  Nobili's  life  excited 
in  Europe.  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  his  uncle,  thought  he 
had  apostatized,  and  wrote  him  an  indignant  letter, 
and  the  General  of  the  Society  added  to  it  a  very  severe 
reprehension.  His  brother  Jesuit,  Fernandes,  had 
denounced  him  as  a  traitor,  because  of  his  rejection  of 
the  name  "  Prangui,"  or  Portuguese,  and  also  of  his 
connivance  at  idolatry  in  allowing  his  neophytes  to 
retain  their  heathenish  customs.  This  was  the  origin 
of  the  famous  question  of  the  "  Malabar  Rites  "  which 
created  such  a  stir  in  the  Church,  one  hundred  years 
later.  These  charges  gave  de  Nobili  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  for  some  time,  but  at  last  everything  was 
satisfactorily  explained,  and  the  cardinal,  the  General 
and  the  Pope  told  the  innovating  missionary  to  con- 
tinue as  he  had  begun.  Hence  in  order  to  obviate  the 
apparent  neglect  and  even  contempt  of  the  lower 
castes,  other  priests  were  assigned  to  that  work,  and 


The  Asiatic  Continent  233 

de  Nobili  restricted  himself  to  his  peculiar  vocation 
for  forty-two  years.  He  then  lost  his  sight  and  was 
sent  to  Jafanapatam  in  Ceylon,  and  afterwards  to 
Mylapore,  where  he  died  on  January  16,  1656. 

The  mission  had  prospered.  About  the  time  de  Nobili 
ended  his  labours,  it  had  an  average  of  5000  converts 
a  year,  and  it  never  dropped  below  3000,  even  in  the 
times  of  persecution.  At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  its  territory  had  extended  beyond  Madura  to 
Mysore,  Marava,  Tanjore  and  Gingi,  and  the  Christians 
of  the  entire  Madura  Mission,  as  it  was  called,  amounted 
to  150,000  souls.  Besides  being  a  field  for  apostolic 
zeal,  the  mission  also  produced  eminent  scholars  in 
Tamil  and  Sanskrit,  like  Beschi,  Cceurdoux,  and  others. 
In  1700  it  reached  into  the  Carnatic  and  probably  took 
in  what  Christians  had  been  left  there  by  the  mission- 
aries among  the  Moguls.  This  mission  glories  in  its 
great  martyr,  John  de  Britto,  who  arrived  there 
twelve  years  after  the  death  of  de  Nobili.  He,  too, 
adopted  the  manners  of  a  Saniassi,  and  labored  as 
such  for  twenty-one  years.  It  was  a  life  of  continual 
and  horrible  martyrdom.  He  was  finally  put  to  death 
as  a  magician,  because  of  the  multitudes  of  people 
attracted  to  the  Faith  by  his  holiness  and  teaching. 
Like  his  predecessor  de  Nobili,  he  did  not  worry  his 
converts  about  their  tufts  of  hair  or  the  cotton  cords 
on  their  shoulders,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  long 
after  his  death,  and  just  while  the  process  of  his  beati- 
fication was  going  on,  the  theologians  were  hotly 
discussing  the  liceity  of  the  Malabar  Rites.  If  they 
were  condemned,  how  would  the  decision  affect  de 
Britto's  canonization?  Pope  Benedict  XIV  decided 
that  it  would  not  stand  in  the  way,  and  so  de  Britto 
was  placed  among  the  Blessed. 

The  companions  of  de  Nobili  and  de  Britto  went 
everywhere  in  Hindostan,  they  even  reconciled  to  the 


234  The  Jesuits 

Church  the  community  of  natives  who  called  them- 
selves the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle,  but 
who  were  in  reality  commonplace  Nestorians.  They 
built  the  first  Church  of  Bengal,  and  penetrated  into 
the  kingdoms  of  Arracan,  Pegu,  Cambogia,  and  Siam, 
all  the  time  busy  avoiding  the  Dutch  pirates  who 
were  prowling  along  the  coast. 

The  most  dazzling  of  these  picturesque  missionaries 
was  undoubtedly  the  Italian,  Constant  Beschi,  who 
arrived  in  Madura  in  1700,  one  hundred  years  after 
de  Nobili,  and  twenty-eight  after  de  Britto.  He 
determined  to  surpass  all  the  other  Saniassis  or  Brah- 
mins in  the  austerity  of  his  life.  He  remained  in  his 
house  most  of  the  time,  and  would  never  touch  any- 
thing that  had  life  in  it.  On  his  forehead  was  the 
pottu  of  Sandanam,  and  on  his  head  the  coulla,  a  sort 
of  cylindrical  head  dress  made  of  velvet.  He  was 
girt  with  the  somen,  was  shod  with  the  ceremonious 
wooden  footgear,  and  pearls  hung  from  his  ears.  He 
never  went  out  except  in  a  palanquin,  in  which  tiger 
skins  had  to  be  placed  for  him  to  sit  on,  while  a  servant 
stood  on  either  side,  fanning  him  with  peacock  feathers, 
and  a  third  held  above  his  head  a  silken  parasol  sur- 
mounted by  a  globe  of  gold.  He  was  called  "  the 
Great  Viramamvuni ",  and  like  Bonaparte,  he  sat 
"wrapped  in  the  solitude  of  his  own  originality." 
Not  even  a  Jesuit  could  come  near  him  or  speak  to 
him.  A  word  of  Italian  never  crossed  his  lips,  but  he 
plunged  into  Sanskrit,  Telugu,  and  Tamil,  studied 
the  poets  of  Hindostan,  and  wrote  poems  that  conveyed 
to  the  Hindoos  a  knowledge  of  Christianity.  For 
forty  years  he  was  publicly  honored  as  the  Ismat 
Saniassi,  that  is,  the  penitent  without  stain.  The 
Nabob  of  Trichinopoli  was  so  enthusiastic  about  him 
that  Beschi  had  to  accept  the  post  of  prime  minister, 
and  thenceforth  he  never  went  abroad  unless  accom- 


The  Asiatic  Continent  235 

panied  by  thirty  horsemen,  twelve  banner-bearers, 
and  a  band  of  military  music,  while  a  long  train  of 
camels  followed  in  the  rear.  If,  on  his  way,  any  Jesuit 
who  was  looking  after  the  Pariahs  came  across  his  path, 
there  was  no  recognition  on  either  side,  but  both  must 
have  been  amused  as  the  Jesuit  in  rags  prostrated 
himself  in  the  dust  before  the  silk-robed  Jesuit  in  the 
cavalcade,  the  outcast  not  daring  even  to  look  at  the 
great  official,  though,  perhaps,  they  were  intimate 
friends. 

Numbers  of  Jesuits  were,  meantime,  besieging  the 
General  with  petitions  to  be  made  missionaries  among 
the  Pariahs,  for  few  could  act  the  part  that  Beschi 
was  playing.  To  be  a  Pariah  was  easy,  and  attempts  to 
evangelize  that  class  continued  to  be  made  in  Madura 
up  to  the  time  of  the  Suppression.  Conversions  were 
numerous,  and  Bouchet,  a  contemporary  of  Beschi, 
heard  as  many  as  100,000  confessions  in  a  single  year. 
It  is  said  that  the  particularly  fervent  converts  among 
the  Brahmins  used  to  cut  off  their  hair  as  a  sacrifice, 
when  they  were  baptized,  and  a  great  number  of 
locks,  some  of  which  were  four  and  five  feet  long, 
adorned  Beschi's  church  in  Tiroucavalor. 

But  these  conversions  connoted  persecution.  Bouchet, 
who  was  Beschi's  successor  among  the  high-class 
Brahmins,  was  several  times  arrested  and  condemned 
to  death.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  sentenced 
to  be  burned  alive  and  was  being  covered  with  oil  to 
make  the  flames  more  active,  the  executioners  were 
so  startled  by  his  apparent  unconcern  that  they  dropped 
the  work  and  set  him  free.  Bouchet  thought  that  the 
Church  of  Madura  was  specially  blessed  by  being 
persecuted,  and  that  explained  for  him  how  he  was 
able  to  baptize  20,000  Hindoos.  He  had  the  care  of 
thirty  churches,  which  meant  untold  labor.  About  the 
trifles  of  never  eating  meat,  fresh  eggs  or  fish,  living  in 


236  The  Jesuits 

straw-covered  cabins  without  beds,  seats  or  furniture, 
and  never  having  the  luxury  of  a  table  or  spoon  or 
knife  or  fork  at  meal  times, —  that  never  gave  the 
missionaries  a  thought.  The  consolation  for  these 
privations  was  that  at  times  they  would  hear  the 
confessions  of  entire  villages  and  never  have  to  deal 
with  a  mortal  sin.  Probably  Simon  Carvalho, — 
Marshall  calls  him  Laynez —  who  had  received  10,000 
people  into  the  Church,  and  was  at  one  time  almost 
torn  to  pieces  by  a  mob,  and  at  another  hunted  for 
five  months  to  be  put  to  death,  would  have  preferred 
this  work,  in  which  he  had  been  employed  for  thirty 
years,  to  that  of  administering  the  diocese  of  Mylapore, 
of  which  Clement  XI  made  him  bishop  later. 

"  They  were  giants,"  wrote  the  Abbe  Dubois 
who  was  a  missionary  in  India  in  modern  times,  "  and 
they  triumphed  in  their  day,  because  neither  the 
world  nor  the  devil  could  resist  the  might  that  was  in 
them.  Possessing  for  the  most  part  the  rarest  mental 
endowments,  so  that  if  they  had  aimed  only  at  human 
honors  they  would  have  encountered  scarcely  a  rival 
in  their  path,  versed  in  all  the  learning  of  their  age, 
and  conspicuous  even  in  that  great  Society,  which 
attracted  to  itself  for  more  than  a  century  the  noblest 
minds  of  every  country  in  Europe,  they  had  acquired 
in  addition  to  their  natural  gifts  such  a  measure  of 
Divine  grace  and  wisdom,  such  perfection  of  evangelical 
virtue,  that  the  powers  of  darkness  fled  away  from 
before  their  face,  and  the  Cross  of  Christ  wherever 
they  lifted  it  up,  broke  in  pieces  the  idols  of  the  Gen- 
tiles." And  Perrin  in  his  "  Voyage  dans  1'Indoustan," 
II,  1 66,  writes:  "  I  confess  that  I  have  criticized  the 
Jesuits  of  Hindostan  with  critical,  perhaps  with  malig- 
nant temper.  I  have  changed  my  mind  now,  and  if 
I  spoke  ill  of  them,  all  India  would  tax  me  with 
imposture." 


The  Asiatic  Continent  237 

The  hermit  kingdom  of  Thibet  was  first  entered  by 
Father  Antonio  de  Andrada.  He  was  one  of  the  mis- 
sionaries in  the  kingdom  of  the  Great  Mogul,  and  started 
from  Agra  in  1624  to  cross  the  Himalayas  and  enter,  if 
possible,  the  Grand  Lama's  mysterious  domain.  He 
joined  a  troop  of  idolaters  who  were  going  to  present 
their  offerings  at  the  celebrated  pagoda  of  Barrinath, 
whither  thousands  flocked  from  all  the  kingdoms  of 
India  and  even  from  the  island  of  Ceylon.  "  That  part 
of  the  trip,  "  he  says  in  his  narrative,  "  was  the  easiest, 
although  in  ascending  the  valley  of  the  Ganges  I  had 
often  to  creep  along  a  narrow  path  cut  in  the  face  of 
the  rock,  sometimes  scarcely  a  palm  in  breadth,  while 
far  below  me  were  roaring  torrents  into  which,  from  time 
to  time,  some  unfortunate  traveller  would  be  hurled. 
Here  and  there  we  had  to  pass  rivers  with  the  help 
of  ropes  strung  across  the  stream,  or  perhaps  on 
heaps  of  snow  which  the  avalanches  had  piled 
up  in  the  valley,  but  which  were  especially  perilous, 
for  the  mountain  torrents  were  all  the  while  eating 
through  them  at  the  base.  If  there  was  a  cave-in 
the  whole  party  would  disappear  in  the  depths.  It 
was  dreadful  work,  but  when  I  saw  my  companions, 
many  of  them  old  men,  keeping  up  their  courage  by 
repeating  the  name  of  Barrinath,  I  was  ashamed  not 
to  do  more  for  Jesus  Christ  than  these  poor  pagans 
for  their  idols  and  pagodas." 

After  the  shrine  was  reached,  the  valiant  missionary 
continued  his  journey,  and  arrived  at  the  town  of 
Manah,  the  last  habitation  of  the  mountaineers  on 
the  India  slope.  "  Before  us  was  a  desert  of  snow, 
inaccessible  for  any  living  creature  for  ten  months 
of  the  year,  and  which  called  for  a  twenty  days'  march, 
without  shelter  and  without  a  bit  of  wood  to  make  a 
fire.  With  me  were  two  natives  and  a  guide.  However, 
I  had  put  my  trust  in  God,  for  whom  alone  I  was 


238  The  Jesuits 

attempting  this  dangerous  task.  Each  step  costs 
incredible  struggles,  for  every  morning  there  was  a  new 
layer  of  snow,  knee-deep  or  up  to  the  waist  or  even 
to  the  shoulders.  In  some  places,  to  get  across  the 
drifts,  we  had  to  go  through  the  motions  of  a  swimmer; 
and  to  avoid  being  smothered  at  night,  we  were  com- 
pelled to  remove  the  snow,  at  least  every  hour."  He 
finally  arrived  at  his  destination-  and  was  well  received 
by  the  Lama.  He  was  given  leave  to  establish  a 
mission  in  the  country,  he  then  made  haste  to  return 
to  Agra  and  in  the  following  year  he  established  a 
base  at  Chaparang.  But  he  himself  was  not  to  remain 
in  the  country  which  he  had  so  gloriously  opened  to 
the  world.  He  was  named  provincial  of  the  Indies, 
and  had  to  set  out  for  Goa  immediately.  Nine  years 
later,  on  March  19,  1634,  he  was  poisoned  by  the  Jews. 
Meantime  the  Thibet  mission  tottered  and  fell. 

In  1 66 1  Father  Johann  Gruber,  one  of  Schall's 
assistants  in  Pekin,  reached  Thibet  on  his  way  to 
Europe.  He  could  not  go  by  sea,  for  the  Dutch  were 
blockading  Macao,  so  he  made  up  his  mind  to  go  over- 
land by  way  of  India  and  Thibet.  With  him  was 
Father  d'Orville,  a  Belgian.  After  reaching  Sunning-fu, 
on  the  confines  of  Kuantsu,  they  crossed  Kukonor 
and  Kalmuk  Tatary  to  the  Holy  City  of  Lhasa  in 
Thibet,  but  did  not  remain  there.  They  then 
climbed  the  Himalayas  and  from  Nepal  journeyed 
over  the  Ganges  plateau  to  Patna  and  Agra.  At  the 
latter  city  d'Orville  died,  he  was  replaced  by  Father 
Roth,  and  the  two  missionaries  tramped  across  Asia 
to  Europe.  Gruber  had  been  two  hundred  and  four- 
teen days  on  the  road.  In  1664  he  attempted  to  return 
to  China  by  way  of  Russia,  but  for  some  reason  or 
other  failed  to  get  through  that  country.  He  then 
made  for  Asia  but  fell  ill  at  Constantinople,  finally 
he  died  either  in  Italy  at  Florence  or  at  Patak  in  Hung- 


The  Asiatic  Continent  239 

ary.  Fortunately  he  had  left  his  "  Journal  "  and  charts 
in  the  hands  of  the  great  Athanasius  Kircher,  who 
published  them  in  his  famous  "  China  Illustrata." 

Other  missionaries  entered  Mingrelia,  Paphlagonia, 
and  Chaldea;  in  the  latter  place  they  brought  the 
Nestorians  back  to  the  Church.  Besides  laboring  in 
nearby  Greece  and  Thessaly,  at  Constantinople,  they 
were  in  Armenia  and  at  Ephesus,  Smyrna,  Damascus, 
Aleppo,  at  the  ruins  of  Babylon,  and  on  the  shores  of 
the  Euphrates  and  the  Jordan,  and  they  founded  the 
missions  of  Antourah  for  the  Maronites  of  Libanus, 
whom  Henry  IV  of  France  took  under  his  protection. 

The  origin  of  these  Maronite  missions  reads  like  a 
romance.  It  is  found  in  the  French  "  Menology " 
of  October  12  which  tells  us  that  one  day,  at  a  meeting 
of  his  sodalists  in  Marseilles,  Father  Amien  was  talking 
about  the  propagation  of  the  Faith  and  incidentally 
mentioned  Persia,  which  only  one  missionary  had  as 
yet  entered.  Among  his  hearers  was  a  rich  merchant 
named  Francois  Lambert,  who,  excited  by  the  sermon, 
determined  to  go  and  put  himself  at  the  disposal  of 
that  solitary  Persian  apostle.  He  crossed  the  Arabian 
desert,  reached  Bagdad,  embarked  on  the  Euphrates, 
with  the  intention  of  getting  to  Ispahan  in  Persia  and 
when  he  failed  in  this,  he  turned  towards  Ormuz  on  the 
straits  connecting  the  Persian  Gulf  with  the  Arabian 
Sea.  That  place,  however,  could  not  keep  him;  it  was 
too  luxurious  and  too  licentious;  so  he  went  over  to 
upper  Hindostan,  where  the  Great  Mogul  was 
enthroned.  He  passed  through  Surate  and  Golconda, 
but  from  Mylapore,  which  holds  the  tomb  of  St. 
Thomas,  he  could  not  tear  himself  away  for  several 
weeks.  Finally,  he  boarded  a  ship  which  was  wrecked 
on  the  shores  of  Bengal,  and  twice  he  came  within  an 
inch  of  disappearing  in  the  deep.  After  two  days  and 
two  nights  on  the  desolate  sands,  he  and  five  other 


240  The  Jesuits 

castaways  sang  the  Te  Deum  to  make  them  forget 
their  sorrow.  They  must  have  struck  inland  after  that 
for  we  are  told  that  later  they  built  a  raft  and  floated 
down  one  of  the  great  rivers  of  India.  It  was  a  journey 
of  thirty-five  days,  and  several  of  the  poor  wanderers 
died  of  hunger  on  the  way.  At  last  they  reached  a 
native  settlement  and  were  led  to  the  nearest  Portu- 
guese post.  Unfortunately,  the  geography  at  this  part 
of  Lambert's  narrative  is  too  vague  for  us  to  be  sure 
of  the  places  he  saw  on  his  journey. 

From  India  he  made  his  way  to  Rome,  where  he 
entered  the  Jesuit  novitiate  of  San  Andrea,  and  from 
there,  after  his  ordination,  he  was  sent  to  Syria.  Again 
he  was  shipwrecked,  and  when  picked  up  on  the  beach 
he  was  taken  for  a  pirate  and  brought  in  chains  to  the 
chief  of  the  mountaineer  clan.  Happily  they  were  the 
Maronites  of  Libanus,  and  there  Lambert  remained 
till  the  end  of  his  days,  helping  the  persecuted  people  to 
keep  their  faith  against  their  furious  Mussulman 
neighbours.  These  Maronites  had  been  represented, 
by  postulatory  letters  at  the  Lateran  Council  as  early 
as  1516,  and  later  Pope  Gregory  XIII  built  for  them 
in  Rome  a  hospital  and  a  college  which  produced  some 
very  eminent  scholars.  In  1616  Clement  VIII  sent 
the  Jesuit,  Girolamo  Dandini,  to  preside  at  the  Maronite 
council,  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  certain  liturgical 
reforms;  but  it  was  the  wanderer  Lambert  who  was 
the  first  to  remain  permanently  among  this  heroic 
people.  He  lived  only  three  years  after  his  arrival; 
it  was  long  enough,  however,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
five  mission  centres  which  were  were  subsequently 
established  there. 

Alexandre  de  Rhodes,  who  appears  at  this  juncture, 
is  another  of  the  picturesque  figures  in  the  history  of 
the  Society.  According  to  Fenelon,  it  is  he  who 
inspired  the  formation  of  the  great  association  of  the 


The  Asiatic  Continent  241 

Missions  Etrangeres,  which  has  sent  so  many  thousands 
of  glorious  apostles,  many  of  whom  were  martyrs,  to 
evangelize  the  countries  from  which  he  had  come  in 
a  most  unexpected  and  extraordinary  fashion.  He 
was  born  in  Avignon,  the  old  French  City  of  the  Popes, 
and  was  called  by  his  contemporaries  the  "  Francis 
Xavier  of  Cochin-China  and  Tonkin."  He  left  Rome 
for  the  Indies  when  he  was  only  twenty-six  years  of 
age,  and  began  his  missionary  work  in  the  East  by 
looking  after  the  slaves  and  jailbirds  of  Goa.  On  his 
way  from  that  city  to  Tuticorin  he  baptized  fifty 
pagans  on  shipboard,  his  eloquence  being  helped  by 
the  furious  tempest  that  threatened  to  send  the  frail 
bark  to  the  bottom.  While  waiting  at  Malacca  for  the 
ship  to  get  ready,  he  and  his  companion  captured 
another  two  thousand  souls  for  the  Lord,  and  when 
he  arrived  at  his  destination,  other  thousands  came 
into  the  fold,  among  them  the  king  and  eighteen  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  household,  and  two  hundred  of  the 
priests  of  the  pagan  temples.  Nor  did  this  rapidity  de- 
note instability,  for  twenty-five  years  later  the  Church 
of  Tuticorin  which  he  founded  could  count  at  its  altars 
no  less  than  300,000  Christians. 

It  is  said  that  he  had  even  the  power  of  making 
thaumaturgists  out  of  his  catechumens.  By  the  use 
of  holy  water  or  the  relic  of  the  cross,  they  restored 
people  to  health,  and  as  many  as  two  hundred  and 
seventy  sufferers  from  various  maladies  were  the 
recipients  of  such  favors.  When  he  was  thrown  into 
prison  and  loaded  with  fetters,  as  he  often  was,  he 
converted  his  jailers  and  others  besides.  When  carried 
off  in  a  ship  to  be  ejected  from  the  country,  he  baptized 
the  captain  and  crew  and  got  them  to  put  him  ashore 
in  a  desolate  place  where  he  began  a  new  apostolate. 
Fifteen  times,  in  his  journeys  to  Tonkin  and  Cochin- 
China,  he  crossed  the  Gulf  of  Tonkin,  which  had  a 
16 


242  The  Jesuits 

terrible  record  of  tempests  and  shipwrecks,  and  finally 
he  started  on  his  famous  overland  tramp  to  Europe  in 
search  of  evangelical  laborers.  He  achieved  his  pur- 
pose, though  it  took  him  three  years  and  a  half  to  do  it. 

On  that  memorable  journey  he  risked  his  life  at 
every  step,  for  he  had  to  travel  through  countries 
whose  language  he  did  not  understand,  and  where  he 
could  expect  nothing  but  suspicion,  ill-treatment  and, 
if  he  escaped  death,  privations  and  sufferings  of  every 
description.  On  his  way  to  Rome  the  Dutch  in  Java 
threw  him  in  jail,  but  he  converted  his  keepers,  and 
was  segregated  in  consequence  and  put  in  solitary 
confinement;  he  regarded  that  seclusion  only  as  a 
splendid  chance  to  make  his  annual  retreat,  and  when 
he  was  let  out  he  resumed  his  pilgrimage  through 
India  and  Asia.  As  he  said  himself,  he  was  carried 
on  the  wings  of  Divine  Providence,  through  storms  and 
shipwrecks,  and  cities  and  deserts,  and  barbarians  and 
pagans,  and  heretics  and  Turks.  He  finally  reached 
Rome  in  1648,  and  told  the  Father  General  and  the 
Pope  what  was  needed  in  the  far-away  Orient.  The 
purpose  of  this  voyage,  so  replete  with  adventure, 
was  of  very  great  importance. 

It  was  chiefly  by  the  help  of  Portugal,  which  was 
then  at  the  most  brilliant  epoch  of  its  history,  that 
missions  had  been  extended  for  thousands  of  miles  in 
the  East,  beginning  at  Goa  and  Malabar,  and  stretching 
round  the  Peninsula  of  Hindostan  to  Cochin-China, 
Corea,  and  Japan,  in  many  of  which  splendid 
ecclesiastical  establishments  had  been  founded.  They 
were  all  begun,  supported  and  protected  by  Portugal. 
But  unfortunately,  Christianity  and  Portugal  were  so 
inextricably  entangled,  mixed  and  confused  with  one 
another  that  the  religion  taught  by  the  missionaries 
came  to  be  considered  by  the  people  not  so  much 
the  religion  of  Christ  as  the  religion  of  the  Portuguese. 


The  Asiatic  Continent  243 

Another  consequence  was  that  a  quarrel  between  any 
little  Portuguese  official  or  merchant  with  an  Oriental 
potentate  meant  a  persecution  of  the  Church.  Further- 
more, as  Portugal's  possession  of  the  country  was  so 
exclusive  that  not  even  the  most  humble  missionary 
could  leave  Europe  unless  he  was  acceptable  to  the 
Government,  it  amounted  to  an  actual  enslavement  of 
the  Church.  Finally,  as  every  other  nation  was 
debarred  from  commercial  rights  in  the  East,  it  became 
the  practice  of  rivals  to  represent  to  the  natives  that 
the  missionaries  were  merely  Portuguese  spies  or 
advance  agents  who  were  preparing  for  invasion  and 
conquest. 

Unfortunately,  in  return  for  all  that  Portugal  had 
done  and  was  to  do  for  the  advancement  of  Christianity 
in  those  newly  discovered  lands,  an  arrangement  had 
been  made  with  the  Pope  that  no  bishop  in  all  that 
vast  territory  could  take  his  see  unless  Portugal 
accepted  him;  no  new  diocese  could  be  created  unless 
Portugal  were  consulted;  no  papal  bull  was  valid 
unless  passed  upon  by  the  Portuguese  kings.  To  put 
an  end  to  all  that,  was  the  reason  why  de  Rhodes 
went  to  Europe.  But  he  did  not  dare  to  appear 
before  the  Pope  as  a  Jesuit,  for  if  it  were  known  what 
his  mission  was  every  Jesuit  house  in  the  Portuguese 
possessions  would  have  been  immediately  closed,  as 
happened  later.  Hence  it  was  that  he  had  to  wait  in 
Rome  for  three  whole  years  until  1651  before  he  could 
even  get  his  petition  considered,  and  this  explains  also 
why  he  made  the  extravagant  demand  for  "  a  patriarch, 
three  archbishops,  and  twelve  bishops."  By  asking 
much  he  thought  he  might  at  least  get  something. 

The  Pope  wanted  de  Rhodes  himself  to  be  a  bishop ; 
he  refused  the  honor,  and  then  was  told  to  go  and  find 
some  available  candidates.  For  that  purpose  he 
addressed  himself  to  a  group  of  ecclesiastics  at  Paris 


244  The  Jesuits 

whom  the  Jesuit  Father  Bagot  was  directing  in  the  ways 
of  the  higher  spiritual  life,  and  who  were  often  spoken 
of  as  the  Bagotists.  Among  them  were  Montmorency 
de  Laval,  the  future  Bishop  of  Quebec,  and  M.  Olier, 
who  was,  later  on,  to  found  the  Society  of  St.  Sulpice. 
His  appeal  had  no  immediate  result,  and  he  then 
prepared  to  return  to  Tonkin,  but  he  received  an  order 
to  go  elsewhere.  Probably  no  Portuguese  vessel  would 
take  him  back,  for  the  purpose  of  his  visit  to  Europe 
must  have  by  that  time  got  abroad.  He  wras,  therefore, 
sent  to  Persia,  although  he  was  then  over  sixty  years 
old;  so  to  Persia  he  went,  and  we  find  him  studying 
the  language  on  his  way  thither,  and,  when  travelling 
through  the  streets  of  Ispahan,  making  a  fool  of 
himself  in  trying  to  stammer  out  the  few  words  he  had 
learned,  but  always  making  light  of  the  laughter  and 
sometimes  of  the  kicks  and  cuffs  and  even  threats  of 
death  that  he  received.  He  was  planning  new  missionary 
posts  in  Georgia  and  Tatary  when  death  called  him 
to  his  reward.  But  he  had  already  won  the  admiration 
of  Ispahan,  and  the  city  never  saw  a  costlier  funeral 
than  the  one  which,  on  November  7,  1660,  conveyed 
to  the  grave  the  mortal  remains  of  the  glorious 
Alexandre  de  Rhodes. 

This  journey  of  the  great  missionary  is  a  classic  in 
its  emphasis  of  the  earnestness  the  Society  has  always 
shown  to  have  the  episcopacy  established  in  its  missions. 
It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  this  project  of  de  Rhodes 
was  due  to  his  own  initiative,  and  was  not  sanctioned 
by  his  superiors.  He  may,  indeed,  have  suggested  it, 
but  no  one  in  the  Society  undertakes  a  work  from 
which  he  may  be  withdrawn  at  any  moment,  except 
he  is  assigned  to  it.  Now  de  Rhodes  continued  at 
his  task  for  several  years,  and  evidently  with  the 
approval  of  his  superiors. 


The  Asiatic  Continent  245 

Apparently  unsuccessful  though  his  effort  was,  it 
brought  about  some  results.  Mme.  d'Aiguillon,  the 
niece  of  Cardinal  Richelieu,  took  the  matter  up,  but 
even  she,  with  her  great  influence,  could  induce  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  to  do  no  more  than  create 
one  little  vicariate  Apostolic.  It  was  a  far  cry  from 
the  great  hierarchical  scheme  of  de  Rhodes.  One  of 
the  Bagotists,  Pallu,  was  appointed,  though,  for  a  time 
there  was  a  question  of  sending  Laval  also  to  the 
East;  but  the  necessity  of  having  a  bishop  in  Quebec 
was  so  urgent  that  Pallu  was  sent  alone  to  Tonkin. 

Portugal,  however,  refused  to  carry  him  thither, 
although  Louis  XIV  asked  it  as  a  special  favor.  In 
1658  when  Pallu  attempted  to  go  out  at  his  own  risk 
he  reached  not  Cochin-China  but  Siam.  He  was  back 
again  in  France  in  1665,  begging  protection  against 
the  Portuguese,  who  were  arresting  his  priests  and 
putting  them  in  jail  at  Goa  and  Macao.  In  1674  he 
was  shipwrecked  in  the  Philippines  and  carried  off 
a  prisoner  to  Spain,  and  was  liberated  only  by  the 
united  efforts  of  the  Pope  and  Louis  XIV.  He  set 
sail  again,  but  was  driven  ashore  on  the  Island  of 
Formosa  and  never  reached  Tonkin. 

Meantime  the  Jesuits  had  not  forgotten  Francis 
Xavier's  dream  about  China.  The  Dominican  Caspar 
de  la  Cruz  had  found  his  way  through  its  closed  gates, 
four  years  after  Xavier  expired  on  the  island  opposite 
Canton,  but  he  was  promptly  expelled.  It  was  only 
in  1581,  fully  thirty-six  years  subsequent  to  the  attempt 
of  de  la  Cruz,  that  the  Jesuits  finally  succeeded.  All 
that  time  they  had  been  waiting  at  Macao, —  a  settle- 
ment granted  to  the  Portuguese  in  return  for  the 
assistance  given  to  China  in  beating  off  a  fleet  of 
plundering  sea-rovers.  They  had  long  since  seen  the 
folly  of  attempting  to  enter  a  ne^y  country  under  the 


246  The  Jesuits 

shadow  of  some  pretentious  embassy,  for  inevitably 
a  suspicion  was  left  lurking  in  the  minds  of  both  the 
governments  and  the  people  that  there  was  an  ulterior 
political  motive  back  of  the  preaching  of  the  priests. 
Hence  it  was  that  Valignani,  though  in  general  believing 
in  embassies  to  kings  and  rulers,  after  the  new  religion 
was  well  understood  and  accepted  in  a  country,  had 
become  convinced  that  it  was  unwise  to  begin  the 
work  in  that  ostentatious  fashion.  He,  therefore, 
took  three  clever  young  Italians,  Michele  Ruggieri, 
Francesco  Pasio  and  Matteo  Ricci,  and  after  training 
them  thoroughly  in  mathematics  and  in  all  the  branches 
of  the  natural  sciences,  ordered  them  not  only  to 
master  the  Chinese  language,  but  also  to  familiarize 
themselves  with  the  literature  and  the  history  of  the 
country.  Ricci  was  available  especially  as  a  mathe- 
matician, having  been  the  favorite  pupil  of  Father 
Clavius,  who  was  one  of  the  chief  constructors  of  the 
Gregorian  Calendar. 

According  to  Hue  (p.  40)  they  gained  access  to  the 
forbidden  land  by  taking  part  in  a  comedy.  A  viceroy, 
he  tells  us,  who  lived  near  Canton,  summoned  to  his 
tribunal  on  some  charge  or  other  both  the  bishop 
and  the  governor  of  Macao.  This  was  a  grievous 
insult  to  those  dignitaries,  but  on  the  other  hand  if 
they  refused  to  appear,  the  result  might  be  disastrous 
for  the  whole  Portuguese  colony.  To  extricate  them- 
selves from  the  dilemma  a  trick  was  resorted  to  —  one 
which  was  quite  in  keeping  with  Chinese  methods. 
Instead  of  going  themselves,  they  sent  two  persons 
who  pretended  to  be  the  bishop  and  governor.  For 
the  former  Father  Ruggieri  was  chosen,  for  the  latter, 
a  layman.  On  the  face  of  it,  the  story  is  absurd. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  impersonate  two  such  well- 
known  functionaries  as  a  bishop  and  a  governor,  and 
the  discovery  of  such  a  fraud  would  inevitably  entail 


The  Asiatic  Continent  247 

condign  punishment.  Most  probably  Ruggieri  and  his 
companion  went  simply  as  representatives  of  the  two 
functionaries.  They  were  well  provided  with  presents, 
which  had  the  desired  effect  of  making  the  viceroy 
forget  his  grievances,  if  he  had  any.  He  accepted 
everything  very  graciously  and  suggested  a  second 
visit.  Then  Ruggieri  apprised  him  of  the  longing  he 
had  always  entertained  of  passing  his  whole  life  in 
the  wonderful  land  of  China,  with  its  marvellously 
intellectual  people,  and  was  assured  that  his  wish 
might  possibly  be  gratified  later  on.  But  when  a 
hint  was  thrown  out  about  a  wonderful  clock  which 
the  missionary  possessed  and  was  extremely  anxious 
to  show  such  an  important  personage  as  the  viceroy, 
every  difficulty  about  a  permanent  residence 
immediately  disappeared. 

The  party  was  conducted  back  to  the  boat  with  great 
ceremony;  and  when  Ruggieri's  return  was  delayed 
by  an  attack  of  sickness,  the  viceregal  junk  was  sent 
to  the  Island  to  convey  him  to  Tchao-King;  and  also 
to  deliver  into  his  hands  a  formal  authorization  to 
establish  a  house  in  the  town.  Valignani,  who  was 
then  at  Macao,  hesitated  for  a  time  about  accepting 
the  offer,  but  finally  consented.  On  December  18 
Ruggieri  embarked,  taking  with  him  Father  Pasio 
and  a  scholastic,  along  with  several  Chinese.  This 
addition  to  the  party  somewhat  surprised  the  viceroy, 
but  Ruggieri  told  him  that  being  a  priest,  it  was  in 
keeping  with  his  dignity  to  have  an  attendant.  The 
others  were  only  servants,  but  the  clock  did  the  work, 
and  the  audacious  apostles  received  a  Buddhist  temple 
outside  the  town  as  their  place  of  residence,  and  were 
the  recipients  of  frequent  favors  in  the  way  of  food 
from  the  delighted  viceroy.  He  even  granted  per- 
mission to  Ruggieri  to  call  Ricci  from  Macao.  Their 
temple-residence  soon  became  famous,  and  every  one 


248  The  Jesuits 

in  Tchao-King,  from  the  highest  civil  and  military 
functionaries  down  to  what  we  now  call  coolies,  came 
out  to  see  the  occupants. 

Unfortunately,  the  viceroy  was  deposed  and  his 
successor,  objecting  to  the  presence  of  the  foreigners, 
ordered  the  whole  party  to  return  to  Macao.  They 
did  not  obey,  but  made  an  attempt  to  reach  Canton, 
which  the  former  official  had  given  them  authority 
to  enter.  They  succeeded  by  purposely  getting  them- 
selves arrested  in  Hong-Kong.  But  in  Canton  no 
attention  was  paid  to  the  document  they  had  with 
them,  and  so  they  made  their  way  back  to  Macao, 
convinced  that  there  was  no  hope  of  remaining  in 
China  under  the  new  incumbent.  Yet  to  their  great 
surprise,  the  very  man  they  feared  sent  an  envoy 
over  to  Macao  to  bring  the  three  missionaries  back 
to  Tchao-King.  He  welcomed  them  effusively  and 
gave  them  a  beautiful  site  for  their  residence,  quite 
close  to  a  famous  porcelain  tower,  which  had  just  been 
erected  and  was  considered  a  monument  of  Chinese 
architecture.  This  was  the  cradle  of  Christianity  in 
China. 

In  1589,  however,  there  arrrived  a  new  viceroy  who 
took  a  fancy  to  their  residence,  and  without  any  cere- 
mony dispossessed  them.  But  as  they  had  already 
won  such  favor  by  their  maps  and  globes  and 
astronomical  instruments,  when  they  came  to  Tchao- 
Tcheou  looking  for  a  house,  they  were  received  with 
the  wildest  demonstrations  of  joy.  They  grew  more 
popular  every  day,  and  soon  the  mandarins  of  Canton 
invited  Ricci  to  speak  in  their  assemblies.  He  availed 
himself  of  all  these  opportunities  afforded  him  to  inject 
into  his  scientific  discourses  something  about  religion, 
and  he  noted  that  they  showed  greater  attention  when 
he  broached  such  topics  than  when  he  restricted 
himself  to  purely  human  science,  Troubles  occurred 


The  Asiatic  Continent  249 

from  time  to  time,  but  the  number  of  neophytes 
increased  daily,  and  Ricci,  who  up  to  that  time  had 
worn  the  dress  of  a  bonze  now  discarded  it  and  assumed 
the  garb  of  a  Chinese  man  of  letters. 

In  1595  the  news  came  that  the  Japanese  emperor, 
Taicosama  was  preparing  an  expedition  against  Corea, 
whereupon,  the  general-in-chief  of  the  Chinese  troops 
came  down  to  Tchao-Tcheou  to  consult  Ricci.  But 
it  was  not  so  much  to  discuss  the  military  situation 
as  to  get  him  to  restore  a  favorite  child  to  health. 
Ricci  promised  to  pray  for  the  boy,  and  in  return 
asked  to  accompany  the  general  back  to  Pekin  for  he 
was  convinced  that  if  he  could  once  convert  the  edu- 
cated classes  of  the  capital  the  rest  of  his  work  would 
be  easy.  The  request  was  granted,  and  Ricci  was 
thus,  very  probably,  the  first  white  man  to  travel 
through  the  interior  of  China  and  to  see  the  people  of 
the  cities  and  country  at  close  range.  At  Nankin, 
however,  he  noted  the  deep  suspicion  entertained  for 
foreigners,  and  although  he  went  as  far  as  Pekin 
itself,  he  thought  it  wiser  not  to  enter  the  city,  and 
consequently  he  returned  by  the  Yellow  River  to 
Tchao-Tcheou. 

Taicosama's  expedition  from  Japan  proved  a  failure, 
and  the  public  anxiety  about  foreigners  ceased  to  be 
acute.  This  lull  enabled  Ricci  to  establish  himself 
at  Nankin,  which  seemed  to  have  struck  his  fancy  as 
he  passed  through  it  on  his  way  to  Pekin.  The  city 
was  in  a  fever  about  the  the  study  of  astronomy  and 
astrology,  and  he  found  a  hearty  welcome  among  its 
learned  men.  He  taught  them  in  his  daily  intercourse 
many  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Faith,  and  got  in  return 
from  them  the  real  meaning  of  their  ancestor-worship 
and  ceremonies.  Hence,  he  had  no  scruples  at  all 
about  taking  part  in  the  honors  paid  to  Confucius, 
who  was  the  great  legislator  and  teacher  of  China, 


250  The  Jesuits 

and  he  never  suspected  that  there  would  be  later 
a  hue  and  cry  in  the  Church  about  the  alleged  idolatry 
of  these  very  ceremonies. 

Meantime  he  forwarded  information  about  the 
observatory  of  Nankin  that  quite  astounded  scientific 
Europe.  Nankin,  however,  did  not  satisfy  him,  and 
he  made  constant  but  unavailing  efforts  to  reach 
the  imperial  city  of  Pekin.  J?inaJ.ly,  in  1600,  after 
seventeen  years  of  patient  waiting,  he  succeeded.  His 
coming  produced  a  great  sensation.  He  was  even 
admitted  to  the  palace,  but  really  never  saw  the 
emperor,  though  the  people  at  large  fancied  he  had 
been  accorded  that  privilege.  However,  it  amounted 
almost  to  the  same  thing,  for  the  effect  produced  and 
his  real  missionary  success  dated  from  that  moment. 
The  greatest  mandarin  of  the  court  became  a  Christian 
and  almost  a  saint,  though  his  name  was  Sin.  Later, 
Sin  went  about  preaching  Christianity.  His  con- 
version itself  was  a  sermon,  and  was  the  beginning 
of  many  others.  Meantime  the  five  Jesuits  at  Canton 
drew  multitudes  around  them.  The  upper  classes 
flocked  to  hear  their  discourses,  and  began  to  take 
pride  in  being  considered  Christians,  but  it  was  hard 
for  them  to  understand  why  the  Gospel  was  not 
exclusively  restricted  to  their  set.  They  could  not 
yet  grasp  the  fact,  even  after  baptism,  that  the  lower 
classes  had  the  same  privilege  of  salvation  as  them- 
selves. To  the  Chinese  mind  it  was  a  social  revolution, 
and  they  were  right,  but  they  were  wrong  in  objecting 
to  it. 

Here  an  interesting  episode  occurs.  Associated 
with  Father  Geronimo  Aquaviva  in  the  court  of  the 
Grand  Mogul  at  Agra  was  a  Portuguese  lay-brother 
named  Benedict  Goes.  Although  engaged  only  in  do- 
mestic service,  he  was  in  great  favor  with  the  barbarian 


The  Asiatic  Continent  251 

monarch,  and  if  the  Viceroy  of  India  was  saved  from 
disaster,  it  was  due  to  Goes,  who  not  only  persuaded 
the  Grand  Mogul  to  desist  from  war  with  the  Portu- 
guese, but  succeeded  in  having  himself  sent  down  to 
Goa  with  all  the  children  who  had  been  captured  in 
the  various  raids  of  Akbar's  armies  into  Portuguese 
territory.  While  he  was  at  Agra,  reports  had  been 
coming  in  that  the  Fathers  had  at  last  entered  China 
—  the  Cathay  of  the  old  Franciscans  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  try  to  establish 
communications  with  them.  Goes  was  chosen  to  carry 
out  the  project,  and,  *in  1602,  he  started  from  Agra, 
which  lies  in  the  northern  part  of  Hindostan,  about 
south  of  Delhi  and  west  of  Lucknow.  It  meant  a 
journey  from  the  centre  of  Hindostan,  across  the 
whole  of  Thibet  and  China,  among  absolutely  unknown 
nations,  savage  and  semi-civilized,  Mohammedans  and 
idolaters,  through  trackless  forests  and  over  snow- 
clad  mountains,  facing  the  dangers  of  starvation  and 
sickness  and  wild  beasts  at  every  step.  But  all  that  was 
not  thought  to  be  beyond  the  powers  of  the  courage- 
ous brother.  Disguised  as  an  Armenian,  he  had  a 
hard  time  of  it  from  robber  chiefs  and  barbarian 
princes.  He  was  ill-treated  by  most  of  them,  for  he 
openly  professed  that  he  was  a  Christian.  When  he 
refused  to  pay  respect  to  Mohammed,  he  was  sentenced 
to  be  trampled  to  death  by  elephants,  but  he  was 
finally  pardoned  and  allowed  to  resume  his  journey. 
On  he  plodded  for  five  years,  and  just  as  he  was  nearing 
the  goal  his  strength  gave  out.  Fortunately  Father 
Ricci,  at  Pekin,  had  heard  of  his  coming,  and  sent 
Father  Fernandes  to  meet  him.  When  Fernandes 
arrived,  Goes  was  breathing  his  last  in  the  frontier 
town  of  Su-Chou.  It  was  then  1607,  and  the  dying 
man  told  his  brother  Jesuit:  "For  five  years  I  have 


252  The  Jesuits 

been  without  the  sacraments,  but  I  do  not  remember 
any  serious  sin  since  I  set  out  from  Agra."  He  died 
on  April  7,  1607. 

In  1606  there  was  worry  in  China  about  certain 
reports  originating  in  Macao,  where  the  Portuguese 
were  stationed,  The  Jesuits  were  accused  of  aspiring 
to  nothing  else  than  the  imperial  throne;  to  prove  it, 
attention  was  called  to  the  fact  that  all  their  houses 
were  built  on  hills,  and  could  be  easily  transformed 
into  citadels  in  time  of  war.  It  was  said,  too,  that  a 
Dutch  fleet  in  the  offing  was  at  their  service,  and  that 
arrangements  had  been  made  with  the  Japanese  for 
an  invasion.  The  result  was  a  general  panic  throughout 
the  empire  and  not  a  few  apostacies.  Threats  to  kill 
the  missionaries  also  began  to  be  heard.  Coincident 
with  this,  came  an  unwise  act  on  the  part  of  the  Vicar- 
General  of  Macao,  who,  because  of  a  decision  against 
him  in  a  dispute  he  had  with  the  Franciscans,  put  the 
whole  island  under  interdict.  The  result  was  that  the 
political  situation  became  still  more  threatening,  and 
Father  Martines  was  arrested  at  Canton,  tortured  in 
the  most  horrible  fashion,  and  finally  executed.  This 
death,  however,  marked  as  it  was  by  the  heroic  courage 
of  the  victim,  his  affirmations  in  the  midst  of  his 
sufferings  of  his  own  innocence  and  that  of  his  brethren, 
quelled  the  storm.  Ricci's  influence,  also,  contributed 
to  calm  the  excited  people,  and  he  became  greater  than 
ever  in  their  estimation.  He  was  called  another 
Confucius,  and  was  even  empowered  by  the  authorities 
to  establish  a  novitiate  at  Pekin.  Ricci  was  well  on 
in  years  by  that  time,  but  continued  valiantly  at  his 
work,  making  saints  as  well  as  great  litterateurs  and 
mathematicians  out  of  his  Jesuit  associates;  he  wrote 
treatises  in  Chinese  on  Christian  ethics,  while  con- 
tinuing his  mathematical  works,  and  all  day  long  he 
was  busy  with  the  great  mandarins  who  came  to  consult 


The  Asiatic  Continent  253 

him.  In  1610  he  succumbed  under  these  accumulated 
labors,  and  his  obsequies  were  such  as  had  never  been 
accorded  to  any  other  foreigner.  The  funeral  pro- 
cession, preceded  by  the  cross,  traversed  the  entire 
city,  and  by  order  of  the  emperor  his  remains  were 
laid  in  a  temple,  which  was  thenceforth  transformed 
into  a  Christian  church. 

Mr.  Gutzlaff,  a  Protestant  missionary  in  China  of 
modern  times,  says  that  "  Ricci  had  spent  only  twenty- 
seven  years  in  China  but  when  he  died  there  were 
more  than  three  hundred  churches  in  the  different 
provinces."  GutzlafFs  testimony  is  all  the  more 
precious,  because,  according  to  Marshall,  his  own 
associates  describe  him  as  "more  occupied  in  amassing 
wealth  than  in  making  Christians."  Referring  to  the 
scientific  labors  of  Ricci  and  his  successors,  Thornton 
(History  of  China,  Preface,  p.  13)  says:  "The  geo- 
graphical labors  performed  in  China  by  the  Jesuits  and 
other  missionaries  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Faith  will 
always  command  the  gratitude  and  excite  the  wonder 
of  all  geographers.  Portable  chronometers  and  aneroid 
barometers,  sextants  and  theodolites,  sympiesometers 
and  micrometers,  compasses  and  artificial  horizons  are, 
notwithstanding  all  possible  care,  frequently  found  to 
fail,  yet  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  a  few  wandering 
European  priests  traversed  the  enormous  state  of 
China  Proper,  and  laid  down  on  their  maps  the  positions 
of  cities,  the  direction  of  rivers  and  the  height  of 
mountains  with  a  correctness  of  detail  and  a  general 
accuracy  of  outline  that  are  absolutely  marvellous. 
To  this  day  all  our  maps  are  based  on  their  obser- 
vations." "  Whatever  is  valuable  in  Chinese  astrono- 
mical science,"  adds  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  "  has  been  borrowed 
from  the  treatises  of  Roman  Catholic  missionaries." 

Ricci's  death  was  a  calamity  to  the  Church,  for  in 
the  following  year  a  mandarin  who  was  in  charge  at 


254  The  Jesuits 

Nankin  started  a  genuine  persecution.  The  mission- 
aries were  summoned  to  his  tribunal,  publicly  scourged 
and  sent  back  to  Macao  —  and  all  this  with  the 
authorization  of  the  emperor.  Matters  grew  worse, 
but  at  the  emperor's  death  in  1620,  there  was  a  lull, 
for  the  Tatars  were  invading  China  and  the  help  of 
the  Portuguese  had  to  be  invoked;  as  that,  however, 
could  not  be  done  unless  the  Europeans  were  placated 
by  recalling  the  missionaries,  the  exiles  returned  to 
their  posts.  The  emperor  overcame  the  Tatars,  and 
the  tranquillity  and  good  feeling  that  followed  allowed 
thS  Fathers,  who  were  scattered  all  over  the  empire, 
some  9f  them  800  leagues  from  Pekin,  to  get  together 
and  decide  on  uniformity  of  methods  in  treating  with 
their  converts.  In  that  congregation  the  doubts 
which  met  them  at  every  step  as  to  what  they  were  to 
tolerate  and  what  to  forbid  were  settled.  They  knew 
the  people  thoroughly  by  this  time,  their  ideas,  their 
customs;  and  their  scrupulous  love  of  the  Faith  guided 
them  in  their  decisions. 

About  this  time  the  great  Adam  Schall  arrived. 
He  was  a  worthy  successor  of  Ricci.  His  reputation 
had  preceded  him  as  a  mathematician,  and  he  was 
immediately  employed  by  the  emperor  to  reform  the 
Chinese  calendar.  His  influence,  in  consequence  of 
this  distinction,  was  unbounded  in  extending  the 
field  of  missionary  work.  The  pagans  themselves 
built  a  church  at  his  request  in  Sin-gan-fou,  and  he 
obtained  an  edict  from  the  emperor  which  empowered 
the  Jesuits  to  preach  throughout  the  empire.  The 
extraordinary  success  of  Schall  was  the  talk  of  Europe ; 
and  applications  poured  in  on  the  General  from  all 
sides  to  be  sent  out  to  share  the  labors  and  the  triumphs 
of  the  mission.  Great  numbers  of  Jesuits  were  sent 
there,  but  many  perished  on  the  way  out,  for  ship- 
wrecks were  very  common  in  those  unknown  seas, 


The  Asiatic  Continent  255 

and  the  crowded  and  unhealthy  ships  as  well  as  the 
long  and  difficult  journey  claimed  throngs  of  victims. 

The  work  soon  became  too  great  for  the  laborers 
and  then  there  came  a  reinforcement  from  the  Philip- 
pines, largely  from  the  other  religious  orders  who  had 
been  long  waiting  to  enter  China,  and  who  now  devoted 
themselves  to  the  work.  Not  knowing  the  country, 
however,  they  were  horrified  to  see  that  many  of  the 
practices  of  Confucianism  were  still  retained  by  the 
Chinese  Christians,  and  they  denounced  as  idolatry 
what  the  old  Jesuits  had  decided,  after  years  of  close 
scrutiny,  to  be  nothing  but  a  ceremonial  which  had 
been  thoroughly  and  scrupulously  purified  from  all 
taint  of  superstition.  But  the  newcomers  would  not 
look  at  it  in  that  light.  They  immediately  wrote  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Manila  and  to  the  Bishop  of  Cebu 
that  the  Jesuits  not  only  concealed  from  their  converts 
the  mysteries  of  the  Cross,  but  permitted  them  to 
prostrate  themselves  before  the  idol  of  Chin-Hoam, 
to  honor  their  ancestors  with  superstitious  rites,  and 
to  offer  sacrifices  to  Confucius.  Rome  was  then 
informed  of  it,  but  some  years  later,  namely  in  1637, 
both  the  archbishop  and  the  bishop  wrote  to  Urban 
VIII  that  on  examining  the  matter  more  carefully, 
they  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  Jesuits 
were  right.  It  was  then  too  late.  A  series  of  bloody 
persecutions  had  already  begun.  The  first  explosion 
of  wrath  occurred  when  one  of  the  new  preachers, 
speaking  through  an  interpreter,  told  his  congregation 
that  Confucius  and  all  their  pagan  ancestors  were  in 
hell,  and  that  the  Jesuits  had  not  taught  the  Chinese 
the  truth.  Public  indignation  followed  on  this  unwise 
utterance  and  expulsions  began. 

Fortunately,  the  persecutions  were  checked  for  a 
while  by  fresh  attempts  of  the  Tatar  element  in  China 
to  seize  the  imperial  crown.  The  Jesuits  kept  out  of 


256  The  Jesuits 

the  strife  by  pronouncing  for  neither  party.  Happily, 
the  Tatar  element  took  a  fancy  to  Schall,  while  Father 
Coeffler  baptized  the  Chinese  empress,  giving  her  the 
Christian  name  of  Helen  and  calling  her  infant  son 
Constantine.  The  Tatars  finally  prevailed,  and  Schall 
was  made  a  mandarin  and  president  of  the  board  of 
mathematics  of  the  empire.  He  was  given  access  to 
the  emperor  at  all  times,  and  might  have  made  him 
a  Christian  had  not  the  empress  induced  him  to  resume 
the  pagan  practices  from  which  Schall  had  weaned  him. 
Nor  did  the  death  of  the  troublesome  lady  mend 
matters;  on  the  contrary,  her  disconsolate  husband 
lapsed  into  melancholia,  and  in  1661  died,  leaving  a 
child  of  eight  as  his  successor.  In  pursuance  of  the 
emperor's  command,  Schall  was  appointed  instructor 
of  the  prince,  but,  as  was  to  be  expected,  that  arrange- 
ment aroused  the  fury  of  the  people  and  especially  of 
the  bonzes.  They  maintained,  rightfully  from  their 
point  of  view,  that  if  Schall  were  left  in  position  during 
the  long  minority  of  the  prince,  he  would  be  absolute 
master  of  the  future  emperor  —  a  result  that  must  be 
prevented  by  crushing  out  Christianity.  Forthwith 
all  the  missionaries  were  summoned  to  Pekin  and 
thrown  into  prison.  There  was  now  no  longer  any 
discussion  about  the  worship  of  Confucius,  for  the 
disputants  were  all  in  the  dungeons  of  Pekin  or  else- 
where waiting  for  death. 

The  Christians  were  without  pastors,  but  Father 
Gresson,  who  was  in  China  at  that  time,  tells  us  in 
his  "  History  of  China  under  the  Tatars  "  that,  during 
the  persecution,  the  catechists  baptized  2000  converts. 
It  is  not  surprising,  for  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
persecution,  the  Jesuits  had  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
churches  and  thirty-eight  residences  in  China;  the 
Dominicans  twenty-one  churches  and  two  residences, 
and  the  Franciscans  one  establishment.  The  total 


The  Asiatic  Continent  257 

Christian  population  amounted  to  250,000.  Up  to 
that  time  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  had  written 
one  hundred  and  thirty-one  works  on  religious  subjects, 
one  hundred  and  three  on  mathematics,  and  fifty-five 
on  physics. 

While  the  missionaries  lay  in  chains  expecting  death 
at  every  moment,  a  Dominican  named  Navarrete 
succeeded  in  making  his  escape.  It  was  lucky  for  him 
in  one  respect,  but  in  all  probability  it  would  mean 
as  soon  as  it  was  discovered  the  massacre  of  all  the 
other  prisoners;  to  avert  this  calamity,  the  illustrious 
Jesuit,  Grimaldi,  took  his  place  in  the  prison.  Unfor- 
tunately, Navarrete  had  no  sooner  reached  Europe 
than  he  began  an  attack  on  the  methods  of  the  Jesuits 
in  dealing  with  the  Chinese  rites.  It  caused  great 
grief  to  his  fellow  Dominicans,  and  when  the  news  of 
the  publication  of  his  "  Tratados  historicos  "  reached 
China  in  1668,  the  Dominican  Father  Sarpetri  sent 
a  solemn  denunciation  of  it  to  Rome,  declaring  that  the 
practice  of  the  Jesuits  in  permitting  such  rites  was 
not  only  irreproachable  under  every  point  of  view, 
but  most  necessary  in  propagating  the  Gospel.  He 
denied  under  oath  that  the  Jesuits  refused  to  explain 
the  mysteries  of  the  Passion  to  the  Chinese,  and 
affirmed  that  his  protest  against  the  charge  was  not 
in  answer  to  an  appeal,  but  was  prompted  by  the 
pure  love  of  truth.  Another  Dominican,  Gregorio 
Lopez,  who  was  Bishop  of  Basilea  and  Vicar-Apostolic 
of  Nan-King,  sent  the  Sacred  Congregation  a  "  memoir" 
in  favor  of  the  Jesuits.  Navarrete  atoned  for  his  act 
of  mistaken  judgment  later;  for  when  he  was  Arch- 
bishop of  Santo  Domingo  he  asked  leave  of  the  king 
and  viceroy  to  establish  a  Jesuit  college  in  his  residential 
city,  and  he  paid  a  glowing  tribute  to  the  Society. 

When  Schall  was  brought  up  for  trial  there  was, 
at  his  side,  another  Jesuit  named  Ferdinand  Verbiest, 
17 


258  The  Jesuits 

a  native  of  Pilthem  near  Courtrai  in  Belgium.  He 
had  come  out  to  China  when  he  was  thirty-six  years 
old,  and  was  first  engaged  in  missionary  work  in 
Shen-si.  In  1660  he  was  summoned  to  Pekin  to  assist 
Father  Schall,  and  in  1664  was  thrown  into  prison 
with  him.  In  the  court-room,  Verbiest  was  the  chief 
spokesman,  for  Schall,  being  then  seventy-four  years 
of  age  and  paralyzed,  was  unable  to  utter  a  word. 
The  charges  against  the  old  missionary  had  been 
trumped  up  by  a  Mohammedan  who  claimed  to  be 
an  astronomer.  They  were:  first,  that  Schall  had 
shown  pictures  of  the  Passion  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
deceased  emperor;  secondly,  that  he  had  secured 
the  presidency  of  the  board  of  mathematics  for  him- 
self in  order  to  promote  Christianity;  thirdly,  that  he 
had  incorrectly  determined  the  day  on  which  the 
funeral  of  one  of  the  princes  was  to  take  place.  It 
was  an  "  unlucky  "  day.  Verbiest  had  no  difficulty 
in  proving  that  the  accused  had  been  ordered  by  the 
emperor  to  be  president  of  the  board  of  ma  hematics, 
and  furthermore,  that  he  never  had  anything  to  do 
with  "  lucky  "  or  "  unlucky  "  days.  The  charge 
about  the  pictures  of  the  Passion  was  admitted,  and 
that  may  have  been  the  reason  why,  in  spite  of  the 
eloquence  of  Verbiest,  who  was  loaded  with  chains 
while  he  was  pleading,  Father  Schall  was  condemned 
to  be  hacked  to  pieces.  In  this  trouble,  however,  the 
Lord  came  to  the  rescue:  a  meteor  of  an  extraordinary 
kind  appeared  in  the  heavens,  and  a  fire  reduced  to 
ashes  that  part  of  the  imperial  palace  where  the 
condemnation  was  pronounced.  The  sentence  was 
revoked,  and  the  missionaries  were  set  free.  Father 
Schall  lingered  a  year  after  recovering  his  freedom. 
When  Kang-hi  came  to  the  throne  in  1669,  an  official 
declaration  was  made  denouncing  both  the  trial  and 
the  sentence  as  iniquitous,  and  although  Schall  had 


The  Asiatic  Continent  259 

then  been  three  years  dead,  unusually  solemn  funeral 
services  were  ordered  in  his  honor.  His  remains  were 
laid  beside  those  of  Father  Ricci.  The  emperor  himself 
composed  the  eulogistic  epitaph  which  was  inscribed 
on  the  tomb. 

.Schall  had  given  forty-four  years  of  his  life  to  China, 
when  at  the  age  of  seventy-five,  he  breathed  his 
last  in  the  arms  of  Father  Rho,  who,  like  him, 
was  to  hold  a  distinguished  position  as  mathema- 
tician in  the  imperial  court.  Rho  had  preluded 
his  advent  to  China  by  organizing  the  defense  of  the 
Island  of  Macao  against  a  Dutch  fleet.  He  had  new 
ramparts  constructed  around  the  city;  he  planted 
four  pieces  of  artillery  on  the  walls,  and  when  the 
Dutchmen  landed  for  an  assault  he  led  the  troops  in 
a  sortie  and  drove  the  enemy  back  to  their  ships. 
In  his  "  Promenade  autour  du  Monde  "  (II,  266),  Baron 
de  Hubner  gives  an  enthusiastic  description  of  the 
Jesuit  Observatory  .at  Pekin. 

"  Man's  inhumanity  to  man  "  is  cruelly  exemplified 
in  a  foul  accusation  urged  against  the  venerable  Schall, 
a  century  after  he  was  buried  with  imperial  honors 
in  Pekin.  In  1 7  5 8  a  certain  Marcello  Angelita,  secretary 
of  Mgr.  de  Tournon,  the  prelate  who  was  commissioned 
to  pass  on  the  question  of  the  Malabar  Rites,  published 
a  story,  which  was  repeated  in  many  other  books, 
that  Schall  had  spent  his  last  years  "  separated  from 
the  other  missionaries,  removed  from  obedience  to 
his  superiors,  in  a  house  which  had  been  given  him  by 
the  emperor,  and  with  a  woman  whom  he  treated  as  his 
wife,  and  who  bore  him  two  children.  After  having 
led  a  pleasant  life  with  his  family  for  some  years,  he 
ended  his  days  in  obscurity."  If  there  was  even  the 
shadow  of  truth  in  these  accusations  the  Dominican 
Navarrete,  who  knew  Schall  personally,  and  who 
wrote  against  him  and  his  brethren  so  fiercely  in  1667, 


260  The  Jesuits 

would  not  have  failed  to  mention  this  fact  to  confirm 
his  charges  about  the  Chinese  Rites.  But  he  does 
not  breathe  a  word  about  any  misconduct  on  the  part 
of  the  great  missionary.  Moreover,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  vigorous  Father  General  Oliva,  who  governed 
the  Society  at  that  time,  would  have  tolerated  that 
state  of  things  for  a  single  instant. 

The  foundation  upon  which  the  charge  was  built 
appears  to  be  that  the  old  missionary  used  to  call  a 
Chinese  mandarin  his  "  adopted  grandson  "  and  had 
helped  to  advance  him  to  lucrative  positions  in  the 
empire.  The  libel  was  written  forty  years  after 
Schall's  death,  and  was  largely  inspired  by  the  infamous 
ex-Capuchin  Norbert. 

Possibly  the  mental  attitude  of  Angelita's  master, 
de  Tournon,  may  also  account  in  part  for  the  publi- 
cation of  this  calumny.  De  Tournon  was  known 
to  be  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  Society,  and  he  took  no 
pains  to  conceal  it  when  sent  to  the  East  to  decide 
the  vexed  question  of  the  Rites.  Although  on  his 
arrival  at  Pondicherry  in  1703,  the  Fathers  met  him 
on  the  shore  and  conducted  him  processionally  to 
the  city,  he  interpreted  these  marks  of  respect  and 
the  lavish  generosity  with  which  they  looked  after  all 
his  needs  as  nothing  but  policy.  Not  only  did  he  refuse 
to  give  them  a  hearing  on  their  side  of  the  controversy, 
but  he  hurried  off  elsewhere  as  soon  as  he  had  formu- 
lated his  decree.  When  he  arrived  in  Canton,  the 
first  words  he  uttered  were:  "  I  come  to  China  to 
purify  its  Catholicity,"  and  before  taking  any  infor- 
mation whatever,  he  ordered  the  removal  of  all  the 
symbols  which  he  considered  superstitious.  The 
act  created  an  uproar,  as  it  was  only  through  the 
influence  of  the  Fathers  that  de  Tournon  was  permitted 
to  go  to  Pekin;  and  although  they  managed  to  make 
his  entrance  into  the  imperial  city  unusually  splendid, 


The  Asiatic  Continent  261 

he  immediately  informed  the  emperor  of  a  plan  he 
had  made  to  reconstruct  the  missions  but,  expressed 
himself  in  such  an  offensive  fashion  that  the  emperor 
immediately  dismissed  him.  He  then  repaired  to 
Canton,  and  on  January  28,  1707,  issued  the  famous 
order  forbidding  the  cult  of  the  ancestors,  with  the 
result  that  the  emperor  sent  down  officials  to  conduct 
him  to  Macao,  where  he  was  reported  to  have  died 
in  prison,  on  June  8,  1710. 

The  Mohammedan  mandarin,  Yang,  who  had 
trumped  up  the  astronomical  accusations  against 
Schall,  had  meantime  succeeded  to  the  post  as  head  of 
the  mathematical  board,  but  the  young  emperor  was 
not  satisfied  with  the  results  obtained,  and  he  ordered 
a  public  dispute  on  the  relative  merits  of  Chinese  and 
European  astronomy.  Verbiest  was  on  one  side,  and 
Yang  on  the  other.  The  test  was  to  be  first,  the 
determination,  in  advance,  of  the  shadow  given  at 
noon  of  a  fixed  day  by  a  gnomon  of  a  given  height; 
second,  the  absolute  and  relative  position  of  the  sun 
and  the  planets  on  a  date  assigned;  third,  the  time  of 
a  lunar  eclipse.  The  result  was  a  triumph  for  Verbiest. 
He  was  immediately  installed  as  president,  and  his 
brethren  were  allowed  to  return  to  their  missions. 
Verbiest's  career,  at  Pekin,  was  more  brilliant  than 
that  of  either  Ricci  or  Schall.  There  is  no  end  of  the 
things  he  did.  The  famous  bronze  astronomical 
instruments  which  figured  so  conspicuously  in  the 
Boxer  Uprising  of  1900  were  of  his  manufacture;  he 
built  an  aqueduct  also,  and  cast  as  many  as  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  cannon  for  the  Chinese  army.  The 
emperor  followed  his  astronomical  classes,  appointed 
him  to  the  highest  grade  in  the  mandarinate,  and 
gave  him  leave  to  preach  Christianity  anywhere  in  the 
empire.  Innocent  XI,  to  whom  he  dedicated  his 
Chinese  Missal,  sent  him  a  brief  in  1681,  which  con- 


262  The  Jesuits 

tained  the  greatest  praise  for  "  using  the  profane 
sciences  to  promote  Christianity,"  a  commendation 
which  was  more  than  welcome  at  that  time,  when  the 
book  of  Navarrete  was  doing  its  evil  work  against  the 
Society. 

In  1677  when  Verbiest  was  appointed  vice-provincial, 
he  appealed  for  new  laborers  from  Europe.  He  even 
advocated  the  use  of  the  native  language  in  the  liturgy 
in  order  to  facilitate  the  ordination  of  Chin'ese  priests. 
It  was  a  bold  petition  to  make  when  the  memory  of 
Luther  and  his  German  liturgy  was  still  so  fresh  in 
the  mind  of  Europe.  The  reason  for  the  petition  was 
that  otherwise  the  conversion  of  China  was  impossible. 
Brucker  in  his  history  of  the  Society  tells  us  that  for 
one  hundred  years  no  native  had  been  ordained  a 
priest  in  China.  He  gives  as  a  reason  for  this,  the 
disgust  of  the  Portuguese  government  at  the  failure 
met  with  in  Hindostan,  where  the  formation  of  a 
native  clergy  was  attempted.  That  alone  would  be 
sufficient  to  acquit  the  Society  of  any  guilt  in  this 
matter;  but  he  gives  facts  to  his  readers  which  go  to 
show  very  plainly  that  this  failure  to  create  a  native 
Chinese  priesthood  clearly  evidences  the  Society's 
desire  to  have  one  at  any  cost.  It  is  paradoxical,  but 
it  is  true. 

The  great  lapse  of  time  that  passed  without  any 
ordinations  need  cause  no  alarm.  There  are  instances 
of  greater  delay  with  less  excuse  very  near  home.  For 
instance,  there  were  secular  priests  and  religious  in 
Canada  as  early  as  1603,  but  there  was  no  seminary 
there  till  1663,  although  the  colony  had  all  the  power 
of  Catholic  France  back  of  it.  There  were  Catholics 
in  Maryland  in  1634,  yet  there  was  no  theological 
seminary  until  1794,  that  is  for  a  space  of  160  years. 
After  a  few  years'  struggle  with  only  five  pupils,  and 
in  some  of  these  years  none,  it  was  closed  and  was  not 


The  Asiatic  Continent  263 

re-opened  until  1810,  which  is  a  far  cry  from  1634. 
New  York  did  not  attempt  to  found  a  seminary  until 
the  time  of  its  fourth  bishop.  The  house  at  Nyack  was 
burned  down  before  it  was  occupied;  the  Lafargeville 
project  also  proved  a  failure  and  it  was  not  until  1841 
that  the  diocesan  seminary  was  opened  at  Fordham. 

Morever,  in  none  of  these  seminaries  was  there  the 
remotest  thought  of  forming  a  native  clergy  in  the 
sense  of  the  word  employed  in  the  anti- Jesuit  indict- 
ment. The  seminarians  were  all  foreigners  or  sons  of 
foreigners.  There  were  no  native  Indians  in  these 
establishments,  as  that,  apart  from  intellectual  and 
moral  reasons,  would  have  been  a  physiological  impossi- 
bility. Nature  rebels  against  the  transplanting  of  a 
creature  of  the  woods  and  mountains  to  the  confine- 
ment of  a  lecture  hall.  The  old  martyr  of  Colonial 
times,  Father  Daniel,  brought  a  number  of  Indian 
boys  -from  Huronia  to  Quebec  to  educate  them,  but 
they  fled  to  the  forests,  while  the  Indian  girls,  who  were 
lodged  with  the  Ursulines,  died  of  consumption.  Even 
in  our  own  times,  Archbishop  Gillow  of  Oaxaca, 
Mexico,  brought  a  number  of  pure-blooded  Indians  to 
Rome,  in  the  hope  of  making  them  priests,  but  they 
all  died  before  he  attained  any  results.  In  brief,  we 
in  America  have  never  formed  a  native  clergy. 

Morever,  this  century-stretch  of  failure  in  China  is 
cut  down  considerably  when  we  recall  the  fact  that 
for  a  considerable  time  there  were  only  two  or,  at  most, 
three  Jesuits  in  that  vast  empire,  and  that  they  con- 
trived to  remain  there  only  because  they  interested 
the  learned  part  of  the  populace  by  their  knowledge 
of  mathematics  and  astronomy,  never  daring  to 
broach  the  subject  of  religion,  though  they  succeeded 
under  the  pretence  of  science  in  circulating  everywhere 
a  catechism  which  enraptured  the  literati.  It  was  only 
in  the  year  1601  that  permission  was  given  to  them 


264  The  Jesuits 

to  preach.  Hence,  the  figure  100  has  to  be  cut  down 
to  83.  In  two  years  time,  namely  in  1617,  there  were 
13,000  Christians  in  China.  How  were  the  rest  to  be 
reached?  No  help  could  be  expected  from  Europe, 
which  was  being  devastated  by  the  Thirty  Years  War 
(1618-1648).  Independently  of  that,  the  caste  system 
prevailed  in  China,  and  the  learned,  even  those  who 
were  converted,  found  it  difficult  to  understand  why 
the  wonderful  truths  of  Christianity  should  be  com- 
municated to  the  common  people,  yet  it  is  from  the 
people  that  ecclesiastical  vocations  usually  come. 
Thirdly,  the  Chinaman  has  an  instinctive  horror  of 
anything  foreign.  Yet  here  was  a  foreign  creed  which, 
moreover,  could  be  thoroughly  learned  only  by  a 
language  which  was  itself  foreign  even  to  the  priests 
who  taught  it. 

The  audacious  project  was  then  formed  to  petition 
the  Pope  to  have  the  liturgy,  even  the  Mass,  in  Chinese. 
No  other  modern  mission  ever  dared  to  make  such  a 
request.  As  early  as  1617,  the  petition  was  presented, 
and  although  Pope  Paul  V  faVored  the  scheme,  yet 
the  undertaking  was  so  stupendous  and  the  project 
so  unusual  that  he  withheld  any  direct  or  official 
recognition.  Whereupon  the  missionaries  began  the 
work  of  translating  into  Chinese  not  only  the  Missal 
and  Ritual,  but  an  entire  course  of  moral  theology 
with  the  cases  of  conscience.  In  addition  a  large  part 
of  the  "  Summa  "  of  St.  Thomas  along  with  many 
other  books  which  might  be  useful  to  the  future  priest 
were  rendered  into  the  vernacular.  The  work  was 
begun  by  Father  Trigault  in  1615  and  was  continued 
by  others  up  to  1682,  when  the  Pope  while  accepting 
the  dedication  of  a  Chinese  Missal  by  Verbiest,  finally 
concluded  that  it  would  be  impolitic  to  grant  per- 
mission for  a  liturgy  in  Chinese.  This  gigantic  under- 
taking ought  of  itself  to  be  a  sufficient  answer  to  the 


The  Asiatic  Continent  265 

charge  that  the  Jesuits  were  averse  to  the  formation 
of  a  native  clergy.  The  scheme  failed,  it  is  true,  but 
the  attempt  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  hackneyed 
charge  against  the  Society. 

It  might  be  asked,  however,  why  did  they  not 
foresee  the  possible  failure  of  their  request  and  provide 
otherwise  for  priests?  In  the  first  place,  there  were 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans  in  China,  and  it  might 
be  proper  to  ask  them  why  they  excluded  the  Chinese 
from  the  ministry?  Secondly,  the  Jesuits  had  all  they 
could  do  to  defend  themselves  from  the  charge  of 
idolatry  for  sanctioning  the  Chinese  Rites.  Thirdly 
when  Schall  arrived  in  1622  there  were  no  missionaries 
to  be  met  anywhere  —  they  were  in  prison  or  in  exile. 
Fourthly,  in  1637  there  was  a  bloody  persecution. 
Fifthly,  in  1644  the  Tatar  invasion  occurred  with  the 
usual  havoc,  and  the  Manchu  dynasty  was  inaugurated. 
Sixthly,  in  1664  Schall  hitherto  such  a  great  man  in 
the  empire  was  imprisoned  and  condemned  to  be  hacked 
to  pieces  and  Verbiest  was  lying  in  chains.  It  is  quite 
comprehensible,  therefore,  that  in  such  a  condition  of 
things,  quiet  seminary  life  was  impossible,  and  as  the 
Jesuits  were  suspected  of  leaning  to  Confucianism  it 
would  have  been  quite  improper  to  entrust  to  them  the 
formation  of  a  secular  clergy. 

When  Verbiest  wrote  home  for  help,  numbers  of 
volunteers  left  Europe  for  China.  Louis  XIV  was 
especially  enthusiastic  in  furthering  the  movement, 
and,  among  other  favors  he  conferred  the  title  of 
"  Fellows  of  the  Academy  of  Science  and  Royal 
Mathematicians  "  on  six  Jesuits  of  Paris,  and  sent 
them  off  to  Pekin.  But  when  they  arrived,  Verbiest 
was  dead.  They  were  in  time,  however,  for  his  *uneral, 
which  took  place  on  March  n,  1688,  with  the  same 
honors  that  had  been  accorded  to  Ricci  and  Schall. 
He  was  laid  to  rest  at  their  side.  His  successors  began 


266  The  Jesuits 

their  work  by  establishing  what  was  called  the  French 
Mission  of  China,  which  lasted  until  the  suppression 
of  the  Society.  The  great  difficulty  in  sending  mission- 
aries thither  by  sea  had  long  exercised  the  minds  of  the 
superiors  of  the  Society,  especially  after  a  startling 
announcement  was  made  by  Father  Couplet,  who, 
after  passing  many  years  in  China,  had  returned 
home,  shattered  in  health  and  altogether  unable  to 
continue  his  work.  He  said  that,  after  a  very  careful 
count,  he  had  found  that  of  the  six  hundred  Jesuits 
who  had  attempted  to  enter  China  from  the  time  that 
Ruggieri  and  Ricci  had  succeeded  in  gaining  an  entrance 
there,  as  many  as  four  hundred  had  either  died  of 
sickness  on  the  way  or  had  been  lost  at  sea.  De 
Rhodes  had  shown  that  an  overland  route  was  possible 
from  India  to  Europe;  the  lay-brother  Goes  had 
succeeded  in  getting  to  China  from  the  land  of  the 
Great  Mogul,  Gruber  had  reversed  the  process,  and 
in  1685  an  attempt  was  made  by  Father  Avril,  to  reach 
it  by  the  way  of  Russia,  but  he  failed. 

Avril's  account  of  his  journey  has  been  shockingly 
"  done  out  of  French  "  by  a  translator  who  prudently 
withheld  his  name.  It  was  "  published  in  London,  at 
Maidenhead,  over  against  St.  Dunstan's  Church,  in 
Fleet  Street."  Its  date  is  1693.  From  it  we  learn  that 
Father  Avril  started  from  Marseilles  and  made  for 
Civita  Vecchia,  after  paying  his  respects  in  Rome  to 
Father  General  de  Noyelle,  he  went  to  Leghorn,  where 
he  took  ship  on  a  vessel  that  was  convoyed  by  a  man- 
of-war  called  the  "  Thundering  Jupiter."  Passing 
by  Capraia,  Elba,  Sardinia,  and  nearly  wrecked  off 
the  "  Coast  of  Candy,"  his  ship  dropped  anchor  in 
the  Lerneca  roadstead  after  three  days'  voyage,  but 
without  the  "  Thundering  Jupiter."  It  was  still  at 
sea.  He  touched  at  Cyprus  and  Alexandretta,  then 
proceeded  to  Aleppo,  crossing  the  plain  of  Antioch  in 


The  Asiatic  Continent  267 

a  caravan.  He  was  fleeced  by  an  Armenian  who 
professed  to  be  a  friend  of  the  Jesuits,  then  he  crossed 
the  Tigris  or  Tiger,  and  arrived  at  Erzerum  in  time  for 
an  earthquake.  Continuing  his  journey  through  the 
intervening  territory  to  what  he  calls  the  "  Caspian 
Lake  ",  he  finally  reached  Moscow,  after  being  almost 
burned  to  death  on  the  Volga,  when  his  ship  took 
fire.  At  Moscow  he  was  welcomed  by  the  German 
Jesuits  who  had  a  house  there,  for  Prince  Gallichin 
(Galitzin)  was  then  prime  minister.  He  was  soon 
bidden  to  depart,  and  crossed  a  part  of  Muscovy, 
Lithuania  and  White  Russia,  reaching  Warsaw  on 
March  12,  1686.  It  was  eighteen  months  since  he 
had  left  Leghorn.  He  made  effort  after  effort  to  get 
back  to  Muscovy,  but  in  vain.  Ambassadors  and 
princes  and  even  Louis  XIV  found  the  Czar  obdurate, 
and  so,  after  two  years  of  unsuccessful  endeavor, 
Avril  arrived  at  Constantinople,  after  being  imprisoned 
by  the  Turks  on  his  way  thither.  Finally,  he  reached 
Marseilles,  having  proved,  at  least,  that  the  road 
through  Russia  would  have  to  be  abandoned;  hence, 
it  was  determined  to  make  those  overland  journeys 
in  the  future  through  the  territory  of  the  Shah  of 
Persia. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BATTLE  OF  THE    BOOKS 

Aquaviva  and  the  Spanish  Opposition  —  Vitelleschi  —  The  "  Monita 
Secreta  ";  Morlin  —  Roding — "  Historia  Jesuitici  Ordinis  " — 
"  Jesuiticum  Jejunium  " — "  Speculum  Jesuiticum  " —  Pasquier  — 
Mariana  — "  Mysteries  of  the  Jesuits  " — "  The  Jesuit  Cabinet  " — 
"  Jesuit  Wolves  " — "  Teatro  Jesuitico  " — "  Morale  Pratique  des 
Jesuites  "  —  "  Conjuratio  Sulphurea  "  —  "  Lettres  Provinciales  "  — 
"  Causeries  de  Lundi  "  and  Bourdaloue  —  Prohibition  of  publication 
by  Louis  XIV  —  Pastoral  of  the  Bishops  of  Sens  —  Santarelli  — 
Escobar  —  Anti-Coton  — "  Les  Descouvertes  " —  Norbert. 

FATHER  CLAUDIUS  AQUAVIVA  died  on  January  31, 
1615,  after  a  generalship  of  thirty-four  years.  To  him 
are  to  be  ascribed  not  only  all  of  the  great  enterprises 
inaugurated  since  1580,  but,  to  a  very  considerable 
extent,  the  spirit  by  which  the  Society  has  been  actuated 
up  to  the  present  time  and  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
it  will  always  retain.  The  marvellous  skill  and  the 
serene  equanimity  with  which  he  guided  the  Society 
through  the  perils  which  it  encountered  from  kings 
and  princes,  from  heretics  and  heathens,  from  great 
ecclesiastical  .tribunals  and  powerful  religious  organi- 
zations, and  most  of  all  from  the  machinations  of 
disloyal  members  of  the  Institute,  entitle  him  to  the 
enthusiastic  love  and  admiration  of  every  Jesuit  and 
the  unchallenged  right  to  the  title  which  he  bears  of 
the  "  Saviour  of  the  Society."  Far  from  being  rigid 
and  severe,  as  he  is  sometimes  accused  of  being,  he 
was  amazingly  meek  and  magnanimously  merciful. 
The  story  about  forty  professed  fathers  having  been 
dismissed  in  consequence  of  their  connection  with 
the  sedition  of  Vasquez  is  a  myth.  The  entire  number 
of  plotters  on  this  occasion  did  not  exceed  twenty-eight, 

[2683 


Battle  of  the  Books  269 

and  only  a  few  of  those  were  expelled.  In  any  case, 
whatever  penalty  was  meted  out  to  them  was  the  act 
of  the  congregation  and  not  o^Aquaviva.  Indeed, 
Aquaviva's  methods  are  in  violent  contrast  with  those 
of  Francis  Xavier,  who  gave  the  power  of  expulsion 
to  even  local  Superiors,  and  we  almost  regret  that 
Xavier  had  not  to  deal  with  his  fellow-countrymen  at 
this  juncture.  It  must  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
great  exodus  from  the  Society  which  occurred  in 
Portugal  antedated  Aquaviva's  time,  and  was  due 
to  the  mistaken  methods  of  government  by  Simon 
Rodriguez. 

The  congregation  convened  after  his  death  met  on 
November  5,  1615,  and  the  majority  of  its  members 
must  have  been  astounded  to  find  the  Spanish  claim 
to  the  generalship  still  advocated.  Mutio  Vitelleschi 
an  Italian,  however,  was  most  in  evidence  at  that  time; 
he  was  forty-five  years  old,  and  had  been  already 
rector  of  the  English  College,  provincial  both  of  Naples 
and  Rome,  and  later  assistant  for  Italy.  As  in  all 
of  those  positions  of  trust  he  had  displayed  a  marvellous 
combination  of  sweetness  and  strength  which  had 
endeared  him  to  his  subjects,  the  possibility  of  his 
election,  at  this  juncture,  afforded  a  well-grounded 
hope  of  a  glorious  future  for  the  Society.  Nevertheless 
some  of  the  Spanish  delegates  determined  to  defeat 
him,  and  with  that  in  view*  they  addressed  themselves 
to  the  ambassadors  of  France  and  Spain,  to  enlist 
their  aid;  but  the  shrewd  politicians  took  the  measure 
of  the  plotters,  and,  while  piously  commending  them 
for  their  religious  zeal  and  patriotism,  politely  refused 
their  co-operation.  That  should  have  sufficed  as  a 
rebuke,  but  prompted  by  their  unwise  zeal  they 
approached  the  Pope  himself  and  assured  him  that 
Vitelleschi  was  altogether  unfit  for  the  position.  The 
Pontiff  listened  to  them  graciously  and  bade  them  be 


270  The  Jesuits 

of  good  heart,  for,  if  Vitelleschi  were  half  what  they 
said  he  was,  there  could  be  no  possibility  of  his  election. 
The  balloting  took  place  on  November  15,  and  Mutio 
was  chosen  by  thirty-nine  out  of  seventy-five  votes. 
The  margin  was  not  a  large  one,  and  shows  how  nearly 
the  conspirators  had  succeeded.  To-day  an  appeal 
to  laymen  in  such  a  matter  would  entail  immediate 
expulsion. 

Vitelleschi's  vocation  to  the  Society  was  a  marked 
one.  When  only  a  boy  of  eleven,  he  was  dreaming  of 
being  associated  with  it,  and  before  he  had  finished  his 
studies  he  bound  himself  by  a  vow  to  ask  for  admittance, 
and,  if  accepted,  to  distribute  his  inheritance  to  the 
poor.  But  as  the  Vitelleschi  formed  an  important 
section  of  the  Roman  nobility,  such  aspirations  did 
not  fit  in  with  the  father's  ambition  for  his  son,  and  the 
boy  was  bidden  to  dismiss  all  thought  of  it.  He  was 
a  gentle  and  docile  lad,  but  he  possessed  also  a  decided 
strength  of  character,  and  like  the  Little  Flower  of 
Jesus  in  our  own  times,  he  betook  himself  to  the 
Pope  to  lay  the  matter  before  him.  The  father  finally 
yielded,  and  on  August  15,  1583,  young  Mutio,  after 
going  to  Communion  with  his  mother  at  the  Gesu, 
hurried  off  to  lay  his  request  before  Father  Aquaviva. 
His  great  desire  was  to  go  to  England,  which  was  just 
then  waging  its  bloody  war  against  the  Faith,  but, 
as  with  Aquaviva  himself,  his  ignorance  of  the  English 
language  deprived  him  of  the  crown  of  martyrdom. 

Cretineau-Joly  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  generalate 
of  Vitelleschi  was  monotone  de  bonheur.  Whether  that 
be  so  or  not,  it  certainly  had  its  share  in  the  monotony 
of  calumny  which  has  been  meted  out  to  the  Society 
from  its  birth.  Thus,  the  beginning  of  Vitelleschi's 
term  of  office  coincided  with  the  publication  of  the 
famous  "  Monita  secreta  "  which,  with  the  exception 
of  the  "  Lettres  provinciales  "  is  perhaps  the  cleverest 


Battle  of  the  Books  271 

piece  -of  literary  work  ever  levelled  against  the  Society. 
The  compliment  is  not  a  very  great  one,  for  nearly 
all  the  other  books  obtained  their  vogue  by  being 
extravagant  distortions  of  the  truth.  But  good  or 
bad  they  never  failed  to  appear. 

The  first  in  order  was  the  diatribe  of  Morlin  in  1568. 
This  was  a  little  before  Vitelleschi's  time.  It  was 
directed  against  the  schools,  and  denounces  the  pro- 
fessors for  having  intercourse  with  the  devil,  practising 
sorcery,  initiating  their  pupils  in  the  black  art, 
anointing  them  with  some  mysterious  and  diabolical 
compound  which  gave  the  masters  control  of  their 
scholars  after  long  years  of  separation.  "  God's 
gospel,"  they  said,  "was  powerless  before  those 
creatures  of  the  devil  whom  hell  had  vomited  forth  to 
poison  the  whole  German  empire  and  especially  to  do 
away  with  the  Evangelicals  who  were  the  especial 
object  of  Jesuitical  hatred."  The  immediate  expulsion 
of -the  "sorcerers"  was  demanded,  and  even  their 
burning  at  the  stake,  for  "  they  not  only  deal  in 
witchcraft  themselves,  -but  teach  it  to  others,  and 
impart  to  their  pupils  the  methods  of  getting  rid  of 
their  foes  by  poisons,  incantations  and  the  like."  It 
was  asserted  that  "  those  who  send  their  boys  to  be 
educated  by  them  are  throwing  their  offspring  into 
the  jaws  of  wolves;  or  like  the  Hebrews  of  old  immo- 
lating them  to  Moloch." 

In  1575  Roding,  a  professor  of  Heidelberg  dedicated 
a  book  to  the  elector,  in  which  he  denounces  the  Jesuit 
schools  as  impious  and  abominable,  and  warns  parents 
"  not  to  give  aid  to  the  Kingdom  of  Satan  by  trusting 
those  who  were  enemies  of  Christianity  and  of  God." 
'  They  are  wild  beasts,"  he  said,  "  who  ought  to  be 
chased  out  of  our  cities.  Though  outwardly  modest, 
simple,  mortified  and  urbane,  they  are  in  reality  furies 
and  atheists  —  far  worse  indeed  than  atheists  and 


272  The  Jesuits 

idolaters.  The  children  confided  to  them  are  con- 
strained to  join  with  their  swinish  instructors  in 
grunting  at  the  Divine  Majesty  "  (Janssen,  VIII,  339). 
"  They  are  not  only  poisoners  but  conspirators  and 
assassins.  Their  purpose  is  to  slay  all  those  who  have 
accepted  the  Confession  of  Augsburg.  They  have 
been  seen  in  processions  of  armed  men,  disguised  as 
courtiers,  dressed  in  silks,  with  gold  chains  around 
their  necks,  going  from  one  end  of  Germany  to  the 
other.  They  caused  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre; 
they  killed  King  Sebastian;  in  Peru,  they  plunged  red 
hot  irons  into  the  bodies  of  the  Indians  to  make  them 
reveal  where  they  hid  their  treasures.  In  thirty  years 
the  Popes  killed  900,000  people,  the  Jesuits  2 , 000,000 ; 
the  cellars  of  all  the  colleges  in  Germany  are  packed 
with  soldiers;  and  Canisius  married  an  abbess."  This 
latter  story  went  around  Germany  a  hundred  times  and 
was  widely  believed. 

The  chief  storehouse  of  all  these  inventions « in 
Germany  was  the  "  Historia  jesuitici  ordinis,"  which 
was  published  in  1593,  and  was  attributed  by  the 
editor,  Polycarp  Leiser,  to  an  ex-novice,  named  Elias 
Hasenmuller,  who  was  then  six  years  dead  —  a  cir- 
cumstance which  ought  to  have  invalidated  the  testi- 
mony for  ordinary  people,  but  which  did  not  prevent 
the  "  Historia "  from  being  an  immense  success. 
Its  publication  was  said  to  be  miraculous,  for  it  was 
given  out  as  certain  that  any  member  of  the  Order 
who  would  reveal  its  secrets  was  to  be  tortured, 
poisoned  or  roasted  alive.  It  was  only  by  a  special 
intervention  of  the  Lord  that  Hasenmuller  escaped. 
The  readers  of  the  "  Historia  "  were  informed  that  the 
Order  was  founded  by  the  devil,  who  was  the  spiritual 
father  of  St.  Ignatius.  Omitting  the  immoralities 
detailed  in  the  volume,  "  the  Jesuits  were  professional 
assassins,  wild  boars,  robbers,  traitors,  snakes,  vipers, 


Battle  of  the  Books  273 

etc.  In  their  private  lives  they  were  lecherous  goats, 
filthy  pigs."  Even  Carlyle  says  this  of  St.  Ignatius  — 
"  The  Pope  had  given  them  full  power  to  commit 
every  excess.  If  we  knew  them  better  we  would  spit 
in  their  faces,  instead  of  sending  them  boys  to  be 
educated.  Indeed  it  would  not  be  well  to  trust  them 
with  hogs."  There  were  other  productions  of  the 
same  nature,  such  as  the  "  Jesuiticum  jejunium  "  and 
"  Speculum  Jesuiticum."  Some  of  these  "  histories  " 
denounced  Father  Gretser  as  "  a  vile  scribbler,  an  open 
heretic  and  an  adulterer  who  carried  the  devil  around 
in  a  bottle."  Bellarmine  was  "  an  Epicurean  of  the 
worst  type,  who  had  already  killed  1642  victims;  562 
of  whom  were  married  women.  He  used  magic  and 
poison,  and  pitched  the  corpses  of  his  victims  into  the 
Tiber.  He  died  the  death  of  the  damned,  and  his 
ghost  was  seen  in  the  air  in  broad  daylight  flying 
away  on  a  winged  horse,"  and  so  on. 

Etienne  Pasquier  was  the  leader  of  the  French 
pamphleteers.  It  was  he  who  had  acted  as  advocate 
against  the  Jesuits  of  the  College  of  Clermont.  The 
plaidoyer  presented  to  the  court  on  that  occasion  was 
embodied  in  his  "  Recherches,"  and,  in  1602,  when 
he  was  seventy-three  years  of  age,  he  published  "  Le 
Catechisme  des  jesuites,  ou  examen  de  leur  doctrine." 
He  finds  that  the  Order,  besides  being  Calvinistic,  is 
also  spotted  with  Judaism.  Ignatius  was  worse  than 
Luther  or  Julian  the  Apostate;  he  was  a  sort  of  Don 
Quixote,  who  laughed  at  the  vows  he  made  at  Mont- 
martre;  he  was  a  trickster,  a  glutton,  a  demon  incarnate, 
an  ass.  The  first  chapter  in  book  II  is  entitled 
"  Anabaptism  of  the  Jesuits  in  their  vow  of  blind 
obedience."  Chapter  2  is  on  the  execution  of  the 
Jesuit,  Crichton,  for  attempting  to  kill  the  Scotch 
chancellor,  of  which  he  had  been  accused  by  "  Robert 
de  Bruce."  In  chapter  3,  a  Mr.  Parry  is  sent  by  the 
18 


274  The  Jesuits 

Jesuits  to  assassinate  Queen  Elizabeth.  In  chapter  4, 
another  attempt  is  made  by  the  same  person,  in  1597, 
etc.  Father  Garasse  wrote  an  answer  to  the  book,  and 
though  he  found  no  difficulty  in  showing  its  absurdities, 
yet  his  language  was  rough  and  abusive  and  quite  out 
of  keeping  with  the  dignity  of  his  state;  besides,  it 
centred  public  attention  on  him  to  such  extent  that 
later  when,  three  pamphlets  with  which  he  had  had 
nothing  to  do  were  written  against  Cardinal'  Richelieu, 
he  was  accused  of  being  the  author  of  them  and  had 
to  swear  in  the  most  solemn  manner  that  he  knew 
nothing  whatever  about  them.  This  charge  against 
Garasse  came  near  alienating  Louis  XIII  from  'the 
Society. 

Much  harm  had  also  been  done  by  Mariana's  alleged 
doctrine  on  regicide.  On  the  face  of  it,  the  book 
could  not  have  been  seditious,  for  it  was  w.ritten  as 
an  instruction  for  the  heir  of  Philip  II,  and  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  an  autocrat,  such  as  he  was,  should  not 
only  have  put  a  book  teaching  regicide  in  the  hands 
of  his  son,  but  should  have  paid  for  its  publication. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  king  conjured  up  by  Mariana 
as  a  possible  victim  of  assassination  is  a  monster  who 
could  have  scarcely  existed.  In  other  circumstances 
the  book  would  have  passed  unnoticed,  but  it  served 
as  a  pretext  to  attack  the  Society  by  ascribing  Mariana's 
doctrine  to  the  whole  Society. 

Now,  Mariana  never  was  and  never  could  be  a 
representative  of  the  Society,  for:  first  sixteen  years 
before  the  objectionable  book  attracted  notice  in 
France,  namely  in  1584,  Mariana  had  been  solemnly 
condemned  by  the  greatest  assembly  of  the  Society, 
the  general  congregation,  as  an  unworthy  son;  a 
pestilential  member  who  should  be  cut  off  from  the 
body,  and  his  expulsion  was  ordered.  He  was  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  band  of  Spanish  conspirators  who 


Battle  of  the  Books  275 

did  all  in  their  power  to  destroy  the  Society.  Secondly, 
his  expulsion  did  not  take  place,  possibly  because  of 
outside  political  influence  like  that  of  Philip  II  and 
the  Inquisition.  Nevertheless  in  1605,  that  is  five 
years  before  the  French  flurry,  he  wrote  another  book 
entitled,  "  De  defectibus  Societatis  "  (i.  e.  the  Weak 
Points  of  the  Society),  which  was  condemned  as 
involving  the  censure  of  the  papal  bull  "  Ascendente 
Domino."  Instead  of  destroying  the  MS.,  as  he 
should  have  done,  if  he  had  a  spark  of  loyalty  in  him, 
he  kept  it,  and  when  in  1609,  he  was  arrested  and 
imprisoned  by  the  Spanish  authorities  for  his  book 
on  Finance  which  seemed  to  reflect  on  the  govern- 
ment, that  MS.  was  seized,  and  subsequently  served 
as  a  strong  weapon  against  the  Society.  Why  should 
such  a  man  be  cited  as  the  representative  of  a  body 
from  which  he  was  ordered  to  be  expelled  and  which 
he  had  attempted  to  destroy? 

Another  harmful  publication  was  the  "  Monita 
secreta,"  which  represented  the  Jesuit  as  a  sweet- 
voiced  intriguer;  a  pious  grabber  of  inheritances  for 
the  greater  glory  of  God;  enjoying  a  vast  influence 
with  conspicuous  personages;  working  underhand  in 
politics,  and  revealing  himself  in  every  clime,  invariably 
the  same,  and  always  monstrously  rich.  The 
"  Monita "  appeared  in  Poland  in  the  year  1612. 
It  was  printed  in  a  place  not  to  be  found  on  any  map: 
namely  Notobirga,  which  suggests  "  Notaburgh,"  or 
"  Not  a  City."  It  purported  to  be  based  on  a  Spanish 
manuscript,  discovered  in  the  secret  archives  of  the 
Society  at  Padua.  It  was  translated  into  Latin,  and 
was  then  sent  to  Vienna,  and  afterwards  to  Cracow, 
where  it  was  given  to  the  public.  It  consists  of  sixteen 
short  chapters,  of  which  we  give  a  few  sample  titles: 
"I.  How  the  Society  should  act  to  get  a  new  foundation. 
II.  How  to  win  and  keep  the  friendship  of  princes 


276  The  Jesuits 

and  important  personages.  III.  How  to  act  with 
people  who  wield  political  influence  or  those  who,  even 
if  not  rich,  may  be  serviceable.  VI.  How  to  win  over 
wealthy  widows.  VII.  How  to  induce  them  to  dispose 
of  their  property.  VIII.  How  to  induce  them  to  enter 
religious  communities,  or  at  least  to  make  them  devout." 
To  achieve  all  this  the  Jesuits  were  to  wear  out- 
wardly an  appearance  of  poverty  in  their  houses;  the 
sources  of  revenue  were  to  be  concealed;  purchases  of 
property  were  always  to  be  made  by  dummies;  rich 
widows  were  to  be  provided  with  adroit  confessors; 
their  family  physicians  were  to  be  the  friends  of  the 
Fathers;  their  daughters  were  to  be  sent  to  convents, 
their  sons  to  the  Society,  etc.  The  vices  of  prominent 
personages  were  to  be  indulged;  quarrels  were  to  be 
entered  into,  so  as  to  get  the  credit  of  reconciliation; 
the  servants  of  the  rich  were  to  be  bribed;  confessors 
Were  to  be  very  sweet;  distinguished  personages  were 
never  to  be  publicly  reprehended,  etc.,  etc.  As  the 
phraseology  of  these  "  Monita  secreta  "  was  a  clever 
imitation  of  the  official  document  of  the  Society  known 
as  the  "  Monita  generalia,"  the  forgery  scored  a 
perfect  success  in  being  accepted  as  genuine.  It  was 
such  a  cleverly  devised  instrument  of  warfare  in  a 
country  like  Poland,  for  instance,  with  its  mixed 
Protestant  and  Catholic  population,  that  it  would 
be  sure  to  strengthen  the  Protestants,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  shame  the  Catholics,  by  discrediting  the  Jesuits, 
who  were  then  in  great  favor.  It  was  anonymous, 
but  was  finally  traced  to  Jerome  Zahorowski,  who  had 
been  dismissed  from  the  Society.  When  charged  by 
the  Inquisition  with  being  the  author,  he  denied  it, 
and  said  he  had  no  complaint  against  his  former 
associates.  The  book  was  put  on  the  Index,  and 
Zahorowski's  declaration  that  he  was  not  the  author 
was  believed.  Later,  however,  it  was  publicly  declared 


Battle  of  the  Books  277 

by  those  who  had  the  means  of  knowing  the  facts  that 
he  was  really  the  guilty  man.  Indeed,  just  before  he 
died,  he  confessed  the  authorship  and  bitterly  regretted 
the  crime  he  had  committed.  He  recanted  all  that 
he  had  said  in  the  book,  but  it  was  too  late;  the  mis- 
chief had  been  done  and  the  evil  work  has  continued. 
There  were  twenty-two  editions  of  it,  issued  during 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  it  was  translated  into 
many  languages.  Its  title  was  changed  from  time  to 
time  and  it  was  called :  '"  The  Mysteries  of  the  Jesuits ;" 
"Arcana  of  the  Society;"  "Jesuit  Machiavelism;" 
"The  Jesuit  Cabinet;"  "Jesuit  Wolves;"  "Jesuit 
Intrigues,"  and  so  on.  There  appeared  also  a  huge 
publication  of  six  or  seven  bulky  volumes  entitled 
"  Annales  des  soi-disants  J6suites,"  which  is  an  encyclo- 
pedia of  all  the  accusations  ever  made  against  the 
Society. 

Another  ex- Jesuit  named  Jarrige  perpetrated  the 
libel  known  as  "  The  Jesuits  on  the  Scaffold,  for  their 
Crimes  in  the  Province  of  Guyenne."  He,  too,  like 
Zahorowski,  when  he  came  to  his  senses,  repented 
and  tried  ineffectually  to  make  amends.  The  "  Teatro 
jesuitico  "  was  also  a  source  from  which  the  assailants 
of  the  Society  drew  their  ammunition.  It  was  con- 
demned by  the  Inquisition  on  January  28,  1655,  and 
the  Archbishop  of  Seville  burned  it  publicly.  Arnauld 
borrowed  from  it  most  of  his  material  for  the  "  Morale 
pratique  des  Jesuites,"  and  to  give  it  importance,  he 
ascribed  its  authorship  to  the  Bishop  of  Malaga, 
Ildephonse  of  St.  Thomas-.  Whereupon  the  bishop 
wrote  to  the  Pope  complaining  that  "  an  infamous 
libel,  unworthy  of  the  light  of  day,  and  composed 
in  the  midst  of  the  darkness  of  hell  and  bearing  the 
title:  '  Morale  pratique  des  Je" suites  '  has  fallen  into 
my  hands,  and  I  am  said  to  be  the  author  of  it, — 
a  feat  which  would  have  been  impossible,  for  it  was 


278  The  Jesuits 

published  in  1654,  when  I  was  yet  a  student,  and  in 
ill-health."  Although  this  solemn  denial  was  published 
all  through  Europe,  Pascal  and  his  friends  continued 
to  impute  it  to  the  bishop,  according  to  Cr6tineau- 
Joly;  but  Brou  says  that  the  mistake  or  the  deceit 
was  admitted.  The  book,  however,  was  not  withdrawn, 
and  continued  to  do  its  evil  work. 

It  was  the  Gunpowder  Plot  that  inflicted  on  the 
English  language  a  great  number  of  absurdities  about 
Jesuits.  King  James  I  of  England  led  the  way  by 
writing  a  book  with  the  curious  title:  "  Conjuratio 
sulphurea,  quibus  ea  rationibus  et  authoribus  coeperit, 
maturuerit,  apparuerit;  una  cum  reorum  examine," 
that  is  "  The  sulphureous  or  hellish  conjuration,  for 
what  reasons  and  by  what  authors  it  was  begun, 
matured  and  brought  to  light;  together  with  the 
examination  of  the  culprits."  He  also  published  a 
"  Defence  of  the  Oath  of  Allegiance  "  which  he  had 
exacted  of  Catholics.  This  elucubration  was  called: 
"  Triplici  nodo  triplex  cuneus,"  which  probably  means 
"A  triple  pry  for  the  triple  knot."  In  it  he  charges 
the  Pope  with  sending  aid  to  the  conspirators  "  his 
henchmen  the  Jesuits  who  confessed  that  they  were 
its  authors  and  designers.  Their  leader  died  con- 
fessing the  crime,  and  his  accomplices  admitted  their 
guilt  by  taking  flight." 

Such  a  charge  formulated  by  a  king  against  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  aroused  all  Europe,  and  Bellarmine 
under  the  name  of  "  Matthaeus  Tortus  "  descended 
into  the  arena.  Dr.  Andrews  replied  with  clumsy 
humor  by  another  book  entitled,  "  Tortura  Torti;" 
that  is  "  The  Tortures  of  Tortus,"  for  which  he  was 
made  a  bishop.  Then  Bellarmine  retorted  in  turn 
and  revealed  the  fact  that  his  majesty  had  written 
a  personal  letter  to  two  cardinals,  himself  and  Aldo- 
brandini,  asking  them  to  forward  a  request  to  the 


Battle  of  the  Books  279 

Pope  to  have  a  certain  Scotchman,  who  was  Bishop  of 
Vaison  in  France,  made  a  cardinal,  "  so  as  to  expedite 
the  transaction  of  business  with  the  Holy  See."  The 
letter  was  signed:  "  Beatitudinis  vestrse  obsequentissi- 
mus  films  J.  R."  (Your  Holiness'  most  obsequious  son, 
James  the  King.)  This  sent  James  to  cover  and  now 
quite  out  of  humor  with  himself,  because  of  the  storm 
aroused  in  England  by  the  disclosure  of  his  duplicity, 
he  handed  over  new  victims  to  the  pursuivants,  "  so 
that,"  as  he  said,  "  his  subjects  might  make  profit 
of  them,"  that  is  by  the  confiscation  of  estates.  He 
then  got  one  of  his  secretaries  to  take  upon  himself 
the  odium  of  the  letter  to  Bellarmine,  by  saying  that 
he  had  signed  the  king's  name  to  it.  Every  one,  of 
course,  saw  through  the  falsehood. 

A  most  unexpected  and  interesting  defender  of 
Father  Garnet,  who  had  been  put  to  death  by  James, 
appeared  at  this  juncture.  He  was  no  less  a  personage 
than  Antoine  Arnauld,  the  famous  Jansenist,  who  was 
at  that  very  moment  tearing  Garnet's  brethren  to 
pieces  in  France.  "  No  Catholic,"  he  said,  "  no 
matter  how  antagonistic  he  might  be  to  Jesuits  in 
general,  would  ever  accuse  Garnet  of  such  a  crime, 
and  no  Protestant  would  do  so  unless  blinded  by 
religious  hate  "  (Cretineau-Joly,  III,  98).  James  I  and 
Bellarmine  came  into  collision  again  on  another  point 
not,  however,  in  such  a  personal  fashion. 

A  Scotch  lawyer  named  Barclay  had  written  a  book 
on  the  authority  of  kings,  in  which  he  claimed  that 
their  power  had  no  limitations  whatever;  at  least,  he 
went  to  the  very  limit  of  absolutism.  Strange  to  say, 
Barclay,  who  was  a  Catholic,  had  Jesuit  affiliations. 
He  was  professor  of  law  in  the  Jesuit  college  of  Pont- 
a-Mousson,  in  France,  where  his  uncle,  Father  Hay, 
was  rector.  For  some  reason  or  another  he  went  over 
to  England  shortly  after  the  accession  of  James  I, 


280  The  Jesuits 

whom  he  greatly  admired,  possibly  because  he  was 
a  Scot.  There  is  no  other  reason  visible  to  the  naked 
eye.  He  was  received  with  extraordinary  honor  at 
court  and  offered  very  lucrative  offices  if  he  would 
declare  himself  an  Anglican.  He  spurned  the  bribe 
and  returned  to  France  where  he  resumed  his  office 
of  teaching.  Cardinal  Bellarmine  -then  appeared,  re- 
futing Barclay's  ideas  of  kingship.  The  peculiarity  of 
Bellarmine's  work  was  that  it  had  nothing  new  in  it. 
It  was  merely  a  collation  of  old  authorities,  chiefly 
French  jurists  who  cut  down  the  royal  power  con- 
siderably. This  threw  the  Paris  parliament  into  a 
frenzy,  for  they  had  all  along  been  persuading  their 
fellow  countrymen  that  the  autocracy  they  claimed 
for  their  monarchs  was  the  immemorial  tradition  of 
France.  To  hide  their  confusion,  they  ascribed  to  the 
illustrious  cardinal  all  sorts  of  doctrines,  such  as 
regicide  and  the  right  of  seizure  of  private  property 
by  the  'Pope,  and  they  demanded  not  only  the  con- 
demnation but  the  public  burning  of  the  book. 

The  matter  now  assumed  an  international  impor- 
tance. Bellarmine  was  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
Church,  and  his  work  had  been  approved  by  the 
Pope,  whose  intimate  friend  he  was.  To  condemn  him 
meant  to  condemn  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  and  would 
thus  necessarily  be  a  declaration  of  a  schism  from 
Rome.  Probably  that  is  what  these  premature 
Gallicans  were  aiming  at.  Ubaldini,  the  papal  nuncio, 
immediately  warned  the  queen  regent,  Mary  de' Medici, 
that  if  such  an  outrage  were  committed,  he  would  hand 
in  his  papers  and  leave  Paris.  Parliament  fought 
fiercely  to  have  its  way,  and  the  battle  raged  with 
fury  for  a  long  time  until,  finally,  Mary  saw  the  peril 
of  the  situation  and  quashed  the  parliamentary  decree 
which  had  already  been  printed  and  was  being  cir- 
culated. 


Battle  of  the  Books  281 

In  the  midst  of  it  all,  the  theory  of  Suarez  on  the 
"  Origin  of  Power  "  came  into  the  hands  of  the  parlia- 
mentarians, and  that  added  fuel  to  the  flame;  Ubaldini 
wrote  to  Rome  on  June  17,  1614,  that  "  the  lawyer 
Servin,  who  was  like  a  demon  in  his  hatred  of  Rome, 
made  a  motion  in  parliament,  first,  that  the  work  of 
Suarez  should  be  burned  before  the  door  of  the  three 
Jesuit  houses  in  Paris,  in  presence  of  two  fathers  of 
each  house;  secondly,  that  an  official  condemnation 
of  it  should  be  entered  on  the  records;  thirdly,  that  the 
provincial,  the  superior  of  the  Paris  residence  and  four 
other  fathers  should  be  cited  before  the  parliament 
and  made  to  anathematize  the  doctrine  of  Suarez,  and 
fourthly,  if  they  refused,  that  all  the  members  of  the 
Society  should  be  expelled  from  France."  The 
measure  was  not  passed. 

The  book  which  did  most  harm  to  the  Society  in  the 
public  mind  was  the  "  Lettres  provinciates  "  by  Pascal, 
though  the  "  Lettres  "  were  not  intended  primarily 
or  exclusively  as  an  attack  on  the  Jesuits.  Their 
purpose  was  to  make  the  people  forget  or  condone  the 
dishonesty  of  the  Jansenists  in  denying  that  the  five 
propositions,  censured  by  the  Holy  See,  were  really 
contained  in  the  "  Augustinus  "  of  Jansenius.  At  the 
suggestion  of  Arnauld,  Pascal  undertook  to  show  that 
other  supposedly  orthodox  writers,  including  the 
Jesuits,  had  advanced  doctrines  which  merited  but  had 
escaped  censure.  The  letters  appeared  serially  and 
were  entitled:  "  Les  Provinciales,  ou  Lettres  Rentes 
par  Louis  de  Montalte  a  un  Provincial  de  ses  amis, 
et  aux  RR.  PP.  Jesuites,  sur  la  morale  et  la  politique 
de  ces  Peres."  They  took  the  world  by  storm,  first 
because  they  revealed  a  literary  genius  of  the  first 
order  in  the  youthful  Pascal,  who  until  then  had  been 
engrossed  in  the  study  of  mathematics,  and  who  was 
also,  at  the  time  of  writing,  in  a  shattered  state  of 


282  The  Jesuits 

health.  Secondly,  because  they  blasted  the  reputation 
of  a  great  religious  order,  and  reproduced  in  exquisite 
language  the  atrocious  calumnies  that  had  been 
poured  out  on  the  world  by  the  "  Monita  secreta," 
the  "  Historia  jesuitici  ordinis,"  Pasquier's  "  Cate- 
chism "  and  the  rest.  The  doctrinal  portion  of  the 
letters  was  evidently  not  Pascal's;  that  was  supplied 
to  him  by  Arnauld  and  Quinet,  for  Pascal  had  neither 
the  time  nor  the  training  necessary  even  to  read  the 
deep  theological  treatises  which  he  quotes  and  professes 
to  have  read. 

To  be  accused  of  teaching  lax  morality  by  those 
who  were  intimately  associated  with  and  supported 
by  such  an  indescribable  prelate  as  the  Cardinal 
Archbishop  of  Paris,  Gondi,  was  particularly  galling 
to  the  French  Jesuits,  and  unfortunately  it  had  the 
effect  of  provoking  them  to  answer  the  charges.  "  In 
doing  so,"  says  Cretineau-Joly,  "  the  Jesuits  killed 
themselves;"  and  Brou,  in  "  Les  Jesuites  et  la  legende," 
is  of  the  opinion  -that  "  more  harm  was  done  to  the 
Society  by  these  injudicious  and  incompetent  defenders 
than  by  Pascal  himself.  It  would  have  been  better 
to  have  said  nothing."  On  the  other  hand,  Petit  de 
Julleville,  in  his  "  Histoire  de  la  langue  et  de  la 
litterature  franchise,"  tells  us  that  one  of  these  Jesuit 
champions  induced  Pascal  to  discontinue  his  attacks, 
just  at  the  moment  that  the  world  was  rubbing  its 
hands  with  glee  and  expecting  the  fiercest  kind  of  an 
onslaught.  "  I  wish,"  said  Morel,  addressing 
himself  to  Pascal,  "  that  after  a  sincere  reconciliation 
with  the  Jesuits,  you  would  turn  your  pen  against  the 
heretics,  the  unbelievers,  the  libertines,  and  the 
corruptors  of  morals."  The  fact  is  that  although 
Pascal  did  not  seek  a  reconciliation  with  the  Jesuits, 
he  suddenly  and  unaccountably  stopped  writing  against 
them;  and  in  1657  he  actually  turned  his  pen  against 


Battle  of  the  Books  283 

the  libertines  of  France,  as  he  had  been  asked  (IV,  604). 
Mere  Angelique,  Arnauld's  sister,  is  also  credited 
with  having  had  something  to  do  with  this  cessation 
of  hostilities,  when  she  wrote:  "Silence  would  be 
better  and  more  agreeable  to  God  who  would  be  more 
quickly  appeased  by  tears  and  by  penance  than  by 
eloquence  which  amuses  more  people  than  it  converts." 

Perhaps  the  entrance  of  the  great  Bourdaloue  on 
the  scene  contributed  something  to  this  change  of 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Jansenist.  As  court  preacher, 
he  had  it  in  his  power  to  refute  the  calumnies  of  Arnauld 
and  Pascal,  and  he  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity 
with  marvellous  power  and  effect.  In  the  "  Causeries 
du  Lundi  "  Sainte-Beuve,  who  favored  the  Jansenists, 
writes:  "  In  saying  that  the  Jesuits  made  no  direct 
and  categorical  denial  to  the  Provinciates,  until  forty 
years  later,  when  Daniel  took  up  his  pen,  we  forget 
that  long  and  continual  refutation  by  Bourdaloue 
in  his  public  sermons  in  which  there  is  nothing  .lacking 
except  the  proper  names;  but  his  hearers  and  his 
contemporaries  in  general,  who  were  familiar  with  the 
controversies  and  were  partisans  of  either  side,  easily 
supplied  these.  Thus  in  his  Sermon  on  '  Lying '  he 
paints  that  vice  with  most  exquisite  skill,  adding 
touch  after  touch,  till  it  stands  out  in  all  its  hideousness. 
As  he  speaks,  you  see  it  before  you  with  its  subtle 
sinuosities  from  the  moment  it  begins  the  attack, 
under  the  pretence  of  an  amicable  censorship,  up  to 
the  moment  when  the  complete  calumny  is  reiterated 
under  the  guise  of  friendship  and  religion."  The 
following  extract  is  an  example  of  this  method. 

"  One  of  the  abuses  of  the  age,"  says  Bourdaloue, 
"  is  the  consecration  of  falsehood  and  its  transformation 
into  virtue;  yea,  even  into  one  of  the  greatest  of 
virtues :  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God.  '  We  must  humiliate 
those  people;'  they  say, '  it  will  be  helpful  to  the  Church 


284  The  Jesuits 

to  blast  their  reputation  and  diminish  their  credit.' 
On  this  principle  they  form  their  conscience,  and  there 
is  nothing  they  will  not  allow  themselves  when  actuated 
by  such  a  charming  motive.  So,  they  exaggerate; 
they  poison;  they  distort ;  .they  relate  things  by  halves; 
they  utter  a  thousand  untruths;  they  confound  the 
general  with  the  particular;  what  one  has  said  badly, 
they  ascribe  to  all;  and  what  all  have  said  well  they 
attribute  to  none.  And  they  do  all  this  —  for  the 
glory  of  God.  This  forming  of  their  intention  justifies 
everything;  and  though  it  would  not  suffice  to  excuse  an 
equivocation,  it  is  more  than  sufficient  in  their  eyes 
to  justify  a  calumny  when  they  are  persuaded  that 
it  is  all  for  the  service  of  God." 

"If  Bourdaloue,"  continues  Sainte-Beuve,  "while 
detailing,  in  this  exquisite  fashion,  the  vice  of  lying, 
had  not  before  his  mind  Pascal  and  his  Provinciates, 
and  if  he  was  not  painting,  feature  by  feature,  certain 
personalities  whom  his  hearers  recognized;  and  if 
while  he  was  doing  it,  they  were  not  shocked,  even 
though  they  could  not  help  admiring  the  artist,  then 
there  are  no  portraits  in  Saint-Simon  and  La  Bruy&re 

It  would  not  be  hard  to  prove  that  the  preaching 

of  Bourdaloue  for  thirty  years  was  a  long  and  powerful 
refutation  of  the  Provinciates,  an  eloquent  and  daily 
drive  at  Pascal." 

It  must  have  been  an  immense  consolation  for  the 
Jesuits  of  those  days,  wounded  as  they  were  to  the  quick 
by  the  misrepresentation  and  calumnies  of  writers  like 
Arnauld,  Pascal,  Nicole  and  others,  to  have  the 
saintly  Bourdaloue,  the  ideal  Jesuit,  occupying  the 
the  first  place  in  the  public  eye,  thus  defending  them. 
Bourdaloue  had  entered  the  Society  at  fifteen,  and 
hence  was  absolutely  its  product.  He  was  a  man  of 
prayer  and  study,  and  when  not  in  the  pulpit  he  was 
in  the  confessional  or  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick  and 


Battle  of  the  Books  285 

dying  poor.  He  was  naturally  quick  and  impulsive, 
but  he  had  been  trained  to  absolute  self-control;  he 
was  even  gay  and  merry  in  conversation,  and  his  eyes 
sparkled  with  pleasure  as  he  spoke.  The  story  that 
he  closed  them  while  preaching  is,  of  course,  nonsense, 
and  the  picture  that  represents  him  thus  was  taken  from 
a  death  masque.  He  labored  uninterruptedly  till  he 
was  seventy- two  and  died  on  May  13,  1704.  Very 
fittingly  his  last  Mass  was  on  Pentecost  Sunday. 

An  excellent  modern  discussion  of  the  Letters 
appeared  in  the  Irish  quarterly  "Studies"  of  Septem- 
ber, 1920.  The  writer,  the  noted  author  Hilaire  Belloc, 
reminds  his  readers  of  certain  important  facts. 
First,  casuistry  is  not  chicanery  nor  is  it  restricted 
to  ecclesiastics;  it  is  employed  by  lawyers,  physicians, 
scientific,  and  even  business  men,  in  considering  condi- 
tions which  are  without  a  precedent  and  have  not  yet 
reached  the  ultimate  tribunal  which  is  to  settle  the 
matter.  Secondly,  as  in  the  discussion  of  ecclesiastical 
"  cases,"  the  terms  employed  are  technical,  just  as 
are  those  of  law,  medicine,  science ;  and  as  the  lan- 
guage is  Latin,  no  one  is  competent  to  interpret 
the  verdict  arrived  at,  unless  he  is  conversant  both 
with  theology  and  the  Latin  language.  "  I  doubt," 
he  says,  "  if  there  is  any  man  living  in  England  to- 
day —  of  all  those  glibly  quoting  the  name  of  Pascal 
against  the  Church  —  who  could  tell  you  what  the 
Mohair  a  Contract  was  "  —  one  of  the  subjects  dragged 
into  these  "  Lettres."  Thirdly,  the  "  Lettres  "  are 
not  so  much  an  assault  on  the  Society  of  Jesus,  as  on 
the  whole  system  of  moral  theology  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  There  are  eighteen  letters  in  all,  and  it  is  not 
until  the  fifth  that  the  Jesuits  are  assailed.  The  attack 
is  kept  up  until  the  tenth  and  then  dropped.  From  the 
thousands  of  decisions  advanced  by  a  vast  number  of 
professors  '  regular  and  secular '  Pascal  brings  forward 


286  The  Jesuits 

only  those  of  the  Jesuits;  and  of  the  many  thousands 
of  "  cases  "  discussed  he  selects  only  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two,  which,  if  the  repetitions  be  eliminated, 
must  be  reduced  to  eighty-nine. 

Of  these  eighty-nine  cases  three  are  clearly  misquo- 
tations —  for  Pascal  was  badly  briefed.  Many  others 
are  put  so  as  to  suggest  what  the  casuist  never  said, 
that  is  a  special  case  is  made  a  general  rule  of  morals. 
Many  more  are  frivolous,  and  others  are  purely 
domestic  controversy  upon  points  of  Catholic  practice 
which  cannot  concern  the  opponents  of  the  Jesuits, 
and  in  which  they  cannot  pretend  an  active  interest 
on  Pascal's  or  the  Society's  side.  When  the  whole  list 
has  been  gone  through  there  remain  fourteen  cases  of 
importance.  In  eight  of  these,  relating  to  duelling 
and  the  risk  of  homicide,  the  opinions  of  some  casuists 
were  subsequently,  at  one  time  or  another,  condemned 
by  the  Church  (seven  of  the  decisions  had  declared 
the  liceity  of  duelling  under  very  exceptional  circum- 
stances, when  no  other  means  were  available  to 
protect  one's  honor  or  fortune).  Pascal  was  right  in 
condemning  the  opinions,  but  was  quite  wrong  in 
presenting  them  as  normal  decisions,  given  under 
ordinary  circumstances  by  Jesuits  generally.  Three 
of  the  remaining  six  decisions  have  never  been  censured ; 
but  Pascal  by  his  tricky  method  of  presenting  them 
out  of  their  context  has  caused  the  solutions  to  be 
confused  with  certain  condemned  propositions. 

A  just  analysis  leaves  of  the  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two  decisions  exactly  three — one  on  simony, 
one  on  the  action  of  a  judge  in  receiving  presents, 
and  the  third  on  usury  —  all  three  of  which  are  doubtful 
and  matters  for  discussion.  There  is  besides  these, 
the  doctrine  of  equivocation,  which  is  a  favorite  shaft 
against  the  Society.  Of  this  Belloc  says:  "This 
specifically  condemned  form  of  equivocation  (that  is, 


Battle  of  the  Books  287 

equivocation  involving  a  private  reservation  of 
meaning),  moreover,  was  not  particularly  Jesuit.  It 
had  been  debated  at  length,  and  favorably,  long  before 
the  Jesuit  Order  came  into  existence,  and  within  the 
great  casuist  authorities  of  that  Order  there  were  wide 
differences  of  opinion  upon  it.  Azor,  for  instance, 
condemns  instances  which  Sanchez  allows.  Of  all 
this  conflict  Pascal  allows  you  to  hear  nothing." 
Finally,  it  may  be  noted  that  the  "  Provincial  Letters  " 
were  not  a  plea  for  truth,  but  a  device  to  distract  the 
public  mind  from  the  chicanery  of  the  Jansenists,  who, 
when  the  famous  "  five  propositions  "  were  condemned, 
pretended  that  they  were  not  in  the  "  Augustinus  " 
written  by  Jansenius. 

Perhaps  the  commonest  libel  formulated  against 
the  Society  is  the  accusation  that  it  is  the  teacher,  if 
not  the  author,  of  the  immoral  maxim:  "the  end 
justifies  the  means  ",  which  signifies  that  an  action, 
bad  in  itself,  becomes  good  if  performed  for  a  good 
purpose.  If  the  Society  ever  taught  this  doctrine,  at 
least  it  cannot  be  charged  with  having  the  monopoly 
of  it.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  great  Protestant  empire 
which  is  the  legitimate  progeny  of  Martin  Luther's 
teaching,  proclaimed  to  the  world  that  the  diabolical 
"  frightfulness  "  which  it  employed  in  the  late  war 
was  prompted  solely  by  its  desire  for  peace.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  Channel,  an  Anglican  prelate  informed 
his  contemporaries  that  "  the  British  Empire  could 
not  be  carried  on  for  a  week,  on  the  principles  of  the 
'  Sermon  on  the  Mount '  "  (The  Month,  Vol.  106,  p. 
255).  The  same  might  be  predicated  of  numberless 
other  powers  and  principalities  past  and  present.  The 
ruthless  measures  resorted  to  in  business  and  politics 
for  the  suppression  of  rivalry  are  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge.  Finally,  every  unbiased  mind  will  concede 
that  the  persistent  use  of  poisonous  gas  by  the  foes 


288  The  Jesuits 

of  the  Society  is  nothing  else  than  a  carrying  out  of 
the  maxim  of  "  the  end  justifies  the  means." 

It  has  been  proved  times  innumerable  that  this 
odious  doctrine  was  never  taught  by  the  Society,  and 
the  average  Jesuit  regards  each  recrudescence  of  the 
charge  as  an  insufferable  annoyance,  and  usually 
takes  no  notice  of  it;  but,  in  our  own  times,  the  bogey 
has  presented  itself  in  such  an  unusual  guise,  that  the 
event  has  to  be  set  down  as  one  more  item  of  domestic 
history.  It  obtruded  itself  on  the  public  in  Germany 
in  1903,  when  a  secular  priest,  Canon  Dasbach,  an 
ardent  friend  of  the  Society,  offered  a  prize  of  2000 
florins  to  any  one  who  would  find  a  defense  of  the 
doctrine  in  any  Jesuit  publication.  The  challenge 
was  accepted  by  Count  von  Hoensbroech,  who  after 
failing  in  his  controversy  with  the  canon,  availed 
himself  of  a  side  issue  to  bring  the  question  before  the 
civil  courts  of  Treves  and  Cologne. 

Apparently  von  Hoensbroech  was  well  qualified  for 
his  task.  He  was  an  ex- Jesuit  and  had  lived  for  years 
in  closest  intimacy  with  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
moralists  and  theologians  of  the  Order:  Lehmkuhl, 
Cathrein,  Pesch  and  others,  in  the  house  of  studies, 
at  Exaeten  in  Holland;  so  that  the  world  rubbed  its 
hands  in  glee,  and  waited  for  revelations.  He  was, 
however,  seriously  hampered  by  some  of  his  own 
earlier  utterances.  Thus,  when  he  left  the  Society 
in  1893,  he  wrote  in  "  Mein  Austritt  aus  dem  Jesuit- 
enorden,"  as  follows:  "  The  moral  teachings,  under 
which  members  of  the  Society  are  trained,  are  beyond 
reproach,  and  the  charges  so  constantly  brought 
against  Jesuit  moralists  are  devoid  of  any  foundation." 
Over  and  above  this,  he  was  somewhat  disqualified  as 
a  witness,  inasmuch  as  he  not  only  had  left  the  Society 
but  had  apostatized  from  the  Faith,  and,  though  a 
priest,  had  married  a  wife;  he  was,  moreover,  notorious 


Battle  of  the  Books  289 

as  a  rancorous  Lutheran  (Civilta  Cattolica,  an.  56, 
p.  8.)  But  the  lure  of  the  florins  led  him  on,  only  to 
have  the  case  thrown  out  by  one  court,  as  beyond  its 
jurisdiction,  and  decided  against  him  in  the  other; 
the  verdict  was  also  heartily  endorsed  by  conspicuous 
Protestants  and  Freethinkers.  Hoensbroech  is  dead, 
but  the  spectre  of  "  the  end  justifying  the  means  " 
still  stalks  the  earth,  and  may  be  heard  from  at  any 
moment. 

Pascal's  "  Provincial  Letters  "  were  not  the  only  V 
source  of  worry  for  the  Jesuits  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries.  Many  other  calumnious 
publications  appeared,  such  as  "  La  morale  des  Jesuits," 
"Disquisitions,"  "Nullites"  etc.,  all  of  which  had 
the  single  purpose  of  poisoning  the  public  mind.  The 
battle  continued  until  an  enforced  peace  was  obtained 
by  a  joint  order  of  the  Pope  and  king  prohibiting  any  V" 
further  issues  of  that  character  from  the  press.  That, 
however,  did  not  check  the  determination  of  the  Jan- 
senists  to  crush  the  Society  in  other  ways.  Thus,  as 
early  as  1650,  the  Archbishop  of  Sens,  who  was  strongly 
Jansenistic,  forbade  the  Jesuits  to  hear  confessions 
in  his  diocese  at  Easter- time,  and  three  years  later, 
he  declared  from  the  pulpit  that  the  theology  of  the 
Jesuits  was  taken  from  the  Koran  rather  than  from 
the  Gospels,  and  that  their  philosophy  was  more 
pagan  than  Christian.  He  called  for  their  ex- 
pulsion as  schismatics,  heretics  and  worse,  and  de- 
clared that  all  confessions  made  to  them  were  invalid 
and  sacrilegious.  Finally,  he  proceeded  to  excommuni- 
cate them  with  bell,  book  and  candle.  They  withdrew 
from  his  diocese  but  were  brought  back  by  the  next 
bishop  a  quarter  of  a  century  later. 

Another   enemy   of   the   Society  was   Cardinal   Le 
Camus  of  Grenoble,  who  forbade  them  to  teach  or 
preach ;  and  when  Saint- Just,  who  had  been  fifteen  years 
19 


290  The  Jesuits 

rector  of  the  college,  complained  of  it  to  some  friends, 
he  was  suspended  and  accused  of  a  grievous  crime  of 
which  he  was  absolutely  innocent.  When  he  brought 
the  matter  to  court,  Father  General  Oliva  censured 
him  for  doing  so  and  removed  him  from  office.  San- 
tarelli,  an  Italian  Jesuit,  launched  a  book  on  the 
public  which  produced  a  great  excitement.  He  pro- 
posed to  prove  that  the  Pope  had  the  power  of  deposing 
kings  who  were  guilty  of  certain  crimes,  and  of  absolving 
subjects  from  their  allegiance.  In  Paris  it  was  inter- 
preted as  advocating  regicide,  and  was  immediately 
ascribed  to  the  whole  Society;  and  it  was  condemned 
by  the  Sorbonne.  Richelieu  was  especially  wrought 
up  about  it.  Poor  Father  Coton,  the  king's  confessor, 
who  was  grievously  ill  at  the  time,  almost  collapsed 
at  the  news  of  its  publication.  The  author  had  not 
perceived  that  the  politics  of  the  world  were  no  longer 
those  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  "  Manual  of  Cases  of  Conscience  "  of  Antonio 
Escobar  y  Mendoza,  the  Spanish  theologian,  furnished 
infinite  material  for  the  Jansenists  of  France  to  blacken 
the  name  of  the  Society.  Necessarily,  every  enormity 
that  human  nature  can  be  guilty  of  is  discussed  in 
such  treatises,  but  it  would  be  just  as  absurd  to  charge 
their  authors  with  writing  them  for  the  purpose  of 
inculcating  vice,  as  it  would  be  to  accuse  medical 
practitioners  of  propagating  disease  by  their  clinics 
and  dissecting  rooms.  The  purpose  of  both  is  to  heal 
and  prevent,  not  to  communicate  disease,  whether  it 
be  of  the  soul  or  body.  In  both  cases,  the  books  that 
treat  of  such  matters  are  absolutely  restricted  to  the 
use  of  the  profession,  and  as  an  additional  precaution, 
in  the  matter  of  moral  theology,  the  treatises  are 
written  in  Latin,  so  that  they  cannot  be  understood 
by  people  who  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  disagreeable 
and  sometimes  disgusting  topics.  To  accuse  the  men 


Battle  of  the  Books  291 

who  condemned  themselves  to  the  study  of  such 
subjects  solely  that  they  might  lift  depraved  human- 
ity out  of  the  depths  into  which  it  descends,  is 
an  outrage. 

This  literary  war  crossed  the  ocean  to  the  French 
possessions  of  Canada,  and  much  of  the  religious 
trouble  that  disturbed  the  colony  from  the  beginning 
may  be  traced  to  the  editorial  activity  of  the  Jansenists 
of  France.  Thus,  when  Brebeuf,  Charles  Lalemant 
and  Masse  came  up  the  St.  Lawerence,  after  a  terrible 
voyage  across  the  Atlantic,  they  were  actually  forbidden 
to  land.  The  pamphlet  known  as  "  Anti-Coton " 
had  been  distributed  and  read  by  the  few  colonists 
who  were  then  on  the  Rock  of  Quebec,  and  they  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  associates  of  a  man  who 
like  Coton,  was  represented  as  rejoicing  in  the  assassi- 
nation of  Henry  IV.  It  did  not  matter  that  Father 
Coton  and  the  king  were  not  only  intimate  but  most 
affectionate  friends,  and  that  assassination  in  such 
circumstances  would  be  inconceivable;  that  it  was 
asserted  in  print  was  enough  to  cause  these  three 
glorious  men,  who  were  coming  to  die  for  the  Catholic 
Faith  and  for  France,  to  be  forbidden  to  land  at  Quebec. 
This  anti-Coton  manifestation  in  the  early  days  of  the 
colony  was  only  a  prelude  to  the  antagonism  that  runs 
all  through  early  Canadian  history.  It  was  kept  up 
by  a  clique  of  writers  in  France,  chief  of  whom  were 
the  Jansenist  Abbes  Bernou  and  Renaudot.  Their 
contributions  may  be  found  in  the  voluminous  collection 
known  as  Margry's  "  D6couvertes,"  which  Parkman 
induced  the  United  States  government  to  print  in 
the  language  in  which  they  were  written.  They  teem 
with  the  worst  kind  of  libels  against  the  Society. 
Some  of  them  pretend  to  have  been  written  in  America, 
but  are  so  grotesque  that  the  forgery  is  palpable. 
Indeed,  among  them  is  a  letter  from  Bernou  to  Renau- 


292  The  Jesuits 

dot  which  says:  "  Get  La  Salle  to  give  me  some  points 
and  I  will  write  the  Relation." 

The  missionary  labors  of  de  Nobili,  de  Britto,  Beschi 
and  others  in  Madura,  a  dependency  of  the  ecclesiastical 
province  of  Malabar,  had  been  so  successful  that 
they  evoked  considerable  literary  fury,  both  inside  and 
outside  the  Church,  chiefly  with  regard  to  the  liceity 
of  certain  rites  or  customs  which  the  natives  had  been 
allowed  to  retain  after  baptism.  In  1623  Gregory  XV 
had  decided  that  they  could  be  permitted  provisionally, 
and  the  practice  was,  therefore,  continued  by  Beschi, 
Bouchet  and  others  who  had  extended  their  apostolic 
work  into  Pondicherry  and  the  Carnatic.  But  about 
the  year  1700  the  question  was  again  mooted,  in 
consequence  of  the  transfer  of  the  Pondicherry  territory 
to  the  exclusive  care  of  the  Jesuits.  The  Capuchins 
who  were  affected  by  the  arrangement  appealed  to 
Rome,  adding  also  a  protest  against  the  Rites.  The 
first  part  of  the  charge  was  not  admitted,  but  the  latter 
was  handed  over  for  examination  to  de  Tournon, 
who  was  titular  Patriarch  of  Antioch. 

As  soon  as  he  arrived  at  Pondicherry,  without  going 
into  the  interior  of  the  country,  he  took  the  testimony 
of  the  Capuchins,  questioned  the  Jesuits  only  cursorily, 
and  also  a  few  natives  through  interpreters.  He  then 
condemned  the  Rites  and  forbade  the  missionaries 
under  heavy  penalties  to  allow  them.  His  decree  was 
made  known  to  the  Jesuit  superior  only  three  days 
before  he  left  the  place,  and  hence  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  enlightening  him.  The  Pope  then  ordered 
de  Tournon's  verdict  to  be  carried  out,  qualifying  it, 
however,  by  adding  "  in  so  far  as  the  Divine  glory  and 
the  salvation  of  souls  would  permit."  The  mission- 
aries protested  without  avail,  and  the  question  was 
discussed  by  two  successive  pontiffs.  Finally,  Innocent 
XIII  insisted  on  de  Tournon's  decree  being  obeyed  in 


Battle  of  the  Books  293 

all  its  details,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  the  document  ever 
reached  the  missions.  Benedict  XIII  reopened  the 
question  later,  and  ruled  upon  each  article  of  de 
Tournon's  decision,  and  a  Brief  was  issued  to  that 
effect  in  1734. 

Into  this  question  the  Jansenists  of  France  injected 
themselves  so  vigorously  that  even  the  bibliography 
for  and  against  the  Rites  is  bewildering  in  its  extent. 
One  contribution  consists  of  eight  volumes  in  French 
and  seven  in  Italian.  In  his  history  of  Jansenism  in 
"  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia  "  Dr.  Forget  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Louvain  says:  "  The  sectaries  [in  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century]  began  to  detach  themselves 
from  the  primitive  heresy,  but  they  retained  unabated 
the  spirit  of  insurbordination  and  schism,  the  spirit  of 
opposition  to  Rome,  and  above  all  a  mortal  hatred 
of  the  Jesuits.  They  had  vowed  the  ruin  of  that 
order,  which  they  always  found  blocking  their  way, 
and  in  order  to  attain  their  end  they  successively 
induced  Catholic  princes  and  ministers  in  Portugal, 
France,  Spain,  Naples,  the  Kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies, 
the  Duchy  of  Parma,  and  elsewhere  to  join  hands 
with  the  worst  leaders  of  impiety  and  philosophism." 
Besides  the  Jansenists,  "  every  Protestant  writer  of 
distinction  with  two  or  three  exceptions,"  says  Marshall 
(Christian  Missions,  I,  226),  "has  ascribed  the  success 
of  the  mission  of  Madura  and  its  wonderful  results  to 
a  guilty  connivance  with  pagan  superstition.  La 
Croze,  Geddes,  Hough  and  other  writers  of  their  class 
in  a  long  succession  luxuriate  in  language  of  which  we 
need  not  offer  a  specimen,  and  direct  against  de  Nobili 
and  his  successors  charges  of  forgery,  imposture, 
superstition,  idolatry,  and  various  other  crimes." 

"  There  is  one  name,"  continues  the  same  writer, 
"which  invariably  occurs  in  the  writings  referred  to; 
one  witness  whom  they  all  quote  and  to  whom  the 


294  The  Jesuits 

whole  history  is  to  be  traced.  That  witness  is  Father 
Norbert,  ex-Capuchin  and  ex-missionary  of  India." 
In  a  work  published  by  this  person  in  1744,  all  the 
fables  which  have  since  been  repeated  as  grave  historical 
facts  are  found.  He  is  quoted,  apparently  without 
suspicion,  by  Dr.  Grant  in  his  "  Bampton  Lectures," 
yet  a  very  little  inquiry  and  even  a  reference  to  so 
common  a  book,  as  the  "  Biographic  universelle " 
would  have  revealed  to  him  the  real  character  of  the 
witness  by  whose  help  he  has  not  feared  to  defame 
some  of  the  most  heroic  and  evangelical  men  who 
ever  devoted  their  lives  to  the  service  of  God,  and  the 
salvation  of  their  fellow  creatures. 

"  Norbert,"  says  Marshall,  "  was  one  of  those 
ordinary  missionaries  who  had  utterly  failed  to  convert 
the  Hindoo  by  the  usual  methods,  and  who  was  as 
incapable  of  imitating  the  terrible  austerities  by  which 
the  Jesuits  prepared  their  success,  as  he  was  of  re- 
joicing in  triumphs  of  which  he  had  no  share.  Stung 
with  mortal  jealousy  and  yielding  to  the  suggestions 
of  a  malice  which  amounted  almost  to  frenzy,  he 
attacked  the  Jesuits  with  fury  even  from  the  pulpit. 
The  civil  power  was  forced  to  interfere,  and  Dupleix, 
the  Governor  of  Pondicherry,  though  he  had  been  his 
friend,  put  him  on  board  ship  and  sent  him  to  America. 
There  he  spent  two  years  less  occupied  in  the  work  of 
the  missions  than  in  planning  schemes  to  revenge 
himself  on  the  Jesuits.  The  publication  of  the 
mendacious  work  in  which  he  treated  the  Society  of 
Jesus  as  a  band  of  malefactors  was  prohibited  by  the 
authorities;  but  he  quitted  Rome  and  printed  it  secretly. 

"Condemned  by  his  Order,  though  he  affected  to 
vindicate  it  from  the  injuries  of  the  Jesuits,  he  fled 
to  Holland  and  thence  to  England,  in  both  of  which 
countries  he  found  congenial  spirits.  In  the  latter,  he 
established  first  a  candle  and  afterwards  a  carpet 


Battle  of  the  Books  295 

factory,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land. Thence  he  wandered  into  Germany,  and  sub- 
sequently, having  obtained  his  secularization  and  put 
off  the  religious  habit  which  he  had  denied,  he  went  to 
Portugal.  Here  remorse  seems  to  have  overtaken  him 
and  he  was  permitted  by  an  excess  of  charity  to  assume 
once  more  the  habit  of  a  Capuchin,  which  he  a  second 
time  laid  aside.  Finally,  after  having  attempted  to 
deceive  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  he  died  in  a  wretched 
condition  in  an  obscure  village  of  France."  The 
"  Biographic  universelle "  gives  some  more  details 
which  are  useful  as  a  matter  of  history.  After  Benedict 
XIV  had  forbidden  Norbert  to  print  his  book,  he 
brought  it  out  either  at  Lucca  or  Avignon ;  in  England 
he  assumed  his  old  name  of  Peter  Parisot;  when  he 
landed  in  Germany  he  was  known  as  Curel,  and  when 
in  France  his  pen-name  was  Abbe  Platel.  According 
to  the  "  Biographic,"  "  Norbert  was  dull  and  heavy, 
without  talent  or  style  and  would  have  been  incapable 
of  writing  a  single  page  if  he  were  not  actuated  by  hate. 
All  of  his  works  have  passed  into  oblivion." 

Americans  have  not  been  troubled  to  any  extent  by 
such  publications,  except,  perhaps  in  one  instance, 
when  a  certain  R.  W.  Thompson,  who  had  been  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  though  he  lived  1000  miles  from  the  sea, 
warned  his  fellow-countrymen  in  1894  that  the  one 
danger  for  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
the  teaching  of  the  Jesuits.  Even  the  Church  is  in 
peril,  because  "  their  system  of  moral  theology  is 
irreconcilable  with  the  Roman  Catholic  religion." 
"  I  refrain  from  discussing  it,"  he  says,  "  because  that 
has  been  sufficiently  done  by  Pascal  and  Paul  Bert." 
No  one  was  excessively  alarmed  by  the  "  Footprints 
of  the  Jesuits." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  TWO  AMERICAS 
1567-1673 

Chile  and  Peru  —  Valdivia  —  Peruvian  Bark  —  Paraguay  Reduc- 
tions —  Father  Fields  —  Emigration  from  Brazil  — Social  and  religious 
prosperity  of  the  Reductions  —  Martyrdom  of  twenty-nine  mission- 
aries—  Reductions  in  Colombia  —  Peter  Claver  —  French  West 
Indies  —  St.  Kitts  —  Irish  Exiles  —  Father  Bath  or  Destriches  — 
Montserrat  —  Emigration  to  Guadeloupe  —  Other  Islands  —  Guiana 

—  Mexico  —  Lower  California  —  The  Pious  Fund  —  The  Philippines 

—  Canada    Missions  —  Br6beuf,    Jogues,    Le    Moyne,    Marquette  — 
Maryland  —  White  —  Lewger. 

IN  1567  Philip  II  asked  for  twenty  Jesuits  to  evangelize 
Peru.  The  request  was  granted,  and  in  the  Lent 
of  1568  the  first  band  arrived  at  Callao  and  made  its 
way  to  Lima.  They  were  so  cordially  welcomed,  says 
Astrain,  that  the  provincial  found  it  necessary  to  warn 
his  men  that  much  would  have  to  be  done  to  live  up 
to  the  public  expectation.  Means  were  immediately 
put  at  their  disposal,  and  they  set  to  work  at  the 
erection  of  a  college.  While  the  college  was  being 
built  they  heard  confessions,  visited  the  jails  and 
hospitals,  gave  lectures  on  canon  law  to  the  priests 
of  the  cathedral,  and  started  their  great  training  school 
on  Lake  Titicaca,  to  which  we  have  already  referred. 
There  the  novices  were  set  to  learn  the  native  languages 
to  prepare  them  for  their  future  work.  For  the  moment 
the  population  of  the  city  also  gave  them  plenty  to 
do.  It  was  made  up  of  three  classes  of  people:  negroes, 
half-breeds,  and  wealthy  Spaniards.  Father  Lopez 
looked  after  the  negroes,  and  by  degrees  succeeded  in 
putting  a  stop  to  their  orgies  and  indecent  dances. 
Others  were,  meantime,  taking  care  of  the  whites  and 

[2961 


The  Two  Americas  297 

mestizos.  The  usual  Jesuit  sodalities  were  put  in 
working  order,  and  soon  it  was  a  common  thing  to  see 
the  young  fashionables  of  the  city  laying  aside  their 
cloaks  and  swords,  and  helping  the  sick  in  the  hospitals, 
going  around  to  the  huts  of  the  poor  or  visiting  criminals 
in  the  jails. 

A  new  detachment  of  missionaries  arrived  in  the 
following  year  with  the  Viceroy  Toledo,  who  evidently 
took  to  them  too  kindly  on  the  way  over,  for  besides 
their  normal  duties,  he  wanted  them  to  assume  the 
office  of  parish  priests,  and  he  immediately  wrote  to 
Philip  II  to  that  effect.  They  refused,  of  course, 
with  the  consequence  of  an  unpleasant  state  of  feeling 
in  their  regard  on  the  part  of  the  authorities.  Indeed, 
the  pressure  became  so  great  that  the  superior  finally 
yielded  to  a  certain  extent,  and  even  assigned  some 
of  his  professed  to  the  work,  but  he  was  promptly 
summoned  to  Europe  for  his  weakness.  Meantime 
novices  came  swarming  in,  among  them  Bernardin 
d'Acosta,  whose  virtues  merited  for  him,  later  on, 
a  place  in  the  "  Menology."  There  was  also  little 
Oviando,  called  the  Stanislaus  of  Peru.  He  was  an 
abandoned  child  whose  parents  had  come  out  to  America 
and  had  lost  him  or  had  died,  and  he  was  begging  his 
bread  in  the  streets  of  Lima  when  the  Fathers  picked 
him  up.  They  sent  him  to  the  college  and  helped  him 
to  become  a  saint. 

The  great  man  of  Peru  and,  subsequently,  of 
Chile,  was  Father  Luis  de  Valdivia,  who  was  hailed 
by  both  Indians  and  whites  as  "  the  apostle,  pacificator 
and  liberator  of  Peru . ' '  The  Indians  had  fascinated  him , 
and  he  learned  their  language  in  a  month  or  so.  When 
he  saw  that  the  only  difficulty  in  making  them 
Christians  was  the  slavery  to  which  they  were  sub- 
jected, coupled  with  the  immorality  of  their  Spanish 
masters,  he  got  himself  named  as  the  representative 


298  The  Jesuits 

of  the  colonial  authorities,  and  started  to  Spain  to 
lay  before  Philip  III  the  degraded  condition  of  his 
overseas  possessions.  The  king  received  him  cordially, 
enacted  the  most  stringent  laws  against  the  abuses, 
and  appointed  him  royal  visitor  and  administrator  of 
Chile,  where  similar  disorders  were  complained  of. 
He  also  wanted  to  make  him  a  bishop,  but  Valdivia 
refused.  Returning  to  Pent  from  Spain,  he  gave 
10,000  Indians  their  freedom.  When  that  got  abroad 
among  the  savages,  all  the  tribes  that  were  then  in 
rebellion  immediately  came  to  terms,  and  on  December 
8,  1612,  the  grand  chief  Utablame,  with  sixty  caciques 
and  a  half-a-score  of  pagan  priests,  all  of  them  wearing 
wreaths  of  sea-weed  on  their  heads,  and  holding  green 
branches  in  their  hands,  descended  from  their  fast- 
nesses and  the  grand  chief,  their  spokesman,  addressed 
Valdivia  as  follows:  "  It  is  not  fear  that  makes  me 
accept  the  peace.  Since  my  boyhood  I  have  not 
ceased  to  defy  the  Spaniards,  and  I  have  withstood 
sixteen  governors  one  after  another.  I  yield  now  only 
to  you,  good  and  great  Father,  and  to  the  King  of  Spain, 
because  of  the  benefits  you  have  bestowed  upon  me 
and  my  people." 

In  spite  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  the  work, 
as  well  as  the  calumnies  of  the  slave-hunters  and  even 
the  wrong  impressions  of  some  of  his  brethren, 
Valdivia  succeeded  in  establishing  four  great  central 
Indian  missions,  which  evoked  the  commendation  of 
successive  kings  of  Spain.  Before  Valdivia  went  to 
Chile,  Viga,  who  had  been  there  since  1593,  had  already 
compiled  a  dictionary  and  grammar  in  Araucanian, 
and  Valdivia  followed  his  example  by  writing  other 
books  to  facilitate  the  work  of  the  missionaries.  The 
colleges  founded  at  Arauco  and  also  at  Valdivia  — 
a  town  named  not  after  the  missionary,  but  to  honor 
his  namesake,  the  governor  of  the  province  —  furnished 


The  Two  Americas  299 

a  base  of  operations  among  the  Araucanian  savages, 
a  fierce  and,  for  a  long  time,  indomitable  people,  who 
were  united  against  the  Spaniards  in  a  league  com- 
posed of  forty  different  tribes.  The  work  among  them 
was  vslow  and  hard,  and  three  of  the  priests  were  killed 
by  them  in  the  wilderness.  Their  success  also  aroused 
the  colonists  to  fury,  and  a  war  of  extermination  of  the 
Indians  was  resolved  upon,  but  Valdivia  opposed  it, 
and  not  only  succeeded  in  getting  the  Araucanians  to 
agree  to  terms  of  peace,  but  brought  in  the  Guagas, 
and  persuaded  them  to  lay  down  their  arms.  The 
great  missionary  was  eighty-two  years  of  age  when 
called  to  his  reward. 

The  famous  Peruvian  bark  was  brought  to  Europe 
about  this  time,  but  it  was  regarded  with  extreme 
suspicion  because  of  its  sponsors,  and  the  wildest 
stories  were  told  of  it.  Medical  treatises  teemed  with 
discussions  about  its  properties,  some  condemning, 
others  commending  it.  Von  Humboldt  says:  "  It 
almost  goes  without  saying  that,  among  Protestant 
physicians,  hatred  of  the  Jesuits  and  religious  intoler- 
ance were  at  the  bottom  of  the  long  conflict  over  the 
good  or  evil  effected  by  the  drug."  The  illustrious 
physician,  Bado,  gave  as  his  opinion  that  "  it  was 
more  precious  than  all  the  gold  and  silver  which  the 
Spaniards  obtained  in  South  America." 

It  was  in  1586,  eighteen  years  after  their  arrival 
in  Peru,  that  the  work  of  the  Jesuits  in  Paraguay  was 
inaugurated.  Francisco  de  Victoria,  Dominican  Bishop 
of  Tucuman  had  invited  them  to  his  diocese,  which 
lay  east  of  the  Andes,  and  his  brother  in  religion, 
Alonso  Guerra,  Bishop  of  Asuncion,  which  was  on  the 
Rio  de  la  Plata  or  Parana  River,  also  summoned  them  to 
his  aid,  both  for  the  whites  and  Indians  of  his  flock. 
They  obeyed,  and  without  delay  colleges,  residences, 
and  retreats  for  the  Spiritual  Exercises  were  instituted 


300  The  Jesuits 

in  Santiago  del  Estero,  Asuncion,  Cordoba,  Buenos 
Aires,  Corrientes,  Tarija,  Salta,  Tucuman,  Santa  Fe  and 
elsewhere.  These  were  for  the  civilized  portion  of  the 
community,  while  a  new  system  was  devised  to  save 
the  Indians  from  their  white  oppressors.  These  poor 
wretches  knew  the  colonists  only  as  slave-dealers  and 
butchers;  hence,  eveiy  attempt  to  teach  them  a  re- 
ligion which  the  whites  were  alleged  to  follow  was  futile. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  it  was  represented  to 
the  authorities  that  Indian  slavery  had  to  cease 
before  the  natives  could  be  pacified,  angry  protests 
were  heard  on  all  sides,  even  from  some  of  the  resident 
priests'  who  maintained  that  the  proper  thing  for  a 
savage  was  to  be  a  Spaniard's  slave.  The  missionaries 
took  the  matter  in  their  own  hands,  as  they  had  done 
in  Peru.  They  went  to  Spain  and  applied  for  royal 
protection.  They  obtained  what  they  wanted,  so 
without  waiting  for  the  edict  to  arrive,  began  their 
work  by  plunging  into  the  woods,  where  cougars, 
pumas,  serpents  and  savages  met  them  at  every  step. 
But  this  vigorous  act  only  enraged  the  colonists  the 
more,  and  the  inhuman  method  of  cutting  off  the 
missionaries'  food-supplies  was  resorted  to  in  order  to 
force  them  into  submission. 

In  this  group  of  heroic  apostles  there  was,  curiously 
enough,  an  Irish  Jesuit  whom  Cretineau-Joly  calls 
Tom  Filds,  which  is  probably  a  Spanish  or  French 
attempt  at  phonetics  for  Tom  Fields,  or  O'Fihily,  or 
O'Fealy,  a  Limerick  exile.  Paraguay  was  the  second 
field  of  his  missionary  labors,  for  he  had  previously 
been  associated  with  the  Venerable  Jose  Anchietain  the 
forests  of  Brazil.  He  had  left  Ireland  when  very 
young,  and  after  studying  at  Paris,  Douay  and  Louvain, 
had  gone  to  Rome  to  begin  his  novitiate.  Six  months 
of  trial  were  sufficient  to  prove  the  solidity  of  his  virtue, 
and  he  then  walked  all  the  way  from  Rome  to  Lisbon, 


The  Two  Americas  301 

to  take  ship  for  America.  He  reached  the  Bay  of  All 
Saints  in  1577,  and  spent  ten  years  in  the  wilderness, 
with  sufferings,  privations  and  danger  of  death  at  every 
step.  From  thence  he  was  sent  to  Paraguay,  but  was 
captured  by  pirates  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Plata, 
and  then,  loaded  with  chains,  he  and  his  companion, 
Manuel  de  Ortega  were  cast  adrift  in  a  battered  hulk 
which  drifted  ashore  at  Buenos  Aires,  where  their  help 
as  missionaries  was  gladly  welcomed.  He  was  at 
Asuncion  when  the  plague  broke  out,  and  the  way 
in  which  he  faced  his  duty  won  "  Father  Tom  "  as 
great  a  reputation  among  the  white  men  as  he  had 
already  acquired  among  his  copper-colored  brethren. 
When  the  plague  was  over,  he  again  became  a  forest 
ranger,  and  in  1602  found  himself  all  alone  among  the 
Indians,  his  companion,  Father  de  Ortega,  having  been 
cited  before  the  Inquisition  on  some  ridiculous  charge 
or  other.  O'Fealy  finally  died  at  Asuncion  on  May  8, 
1624,  at  the  good  old  age  of  seventy-eight,  after  fifty 
hard  years  as  a  South  American  missionary  —  ten  in 
Brazil  and  forty  in  Paraguay. 

These  journeys  among  the  wandering  tribes  in  the 
wilderness  gave  occasion,  it  is  true,  for  extraordinary 
heroism,  and  saved  many  a  soul,  but  the  results  were 
far  from  being  in  proportion  to  the  energy  expended. 
Hence,  at  the  suggestion  of  Father  Aquaviva,  the 
missionaries  all  met  at  Saca,  far  out  under  the  Andes, 
and  determined  to  gather  the  Indians  together  in 
separate  colonies  which  no  white  man,  except  the 
government  officials,  would  be  allowed  to  enter.  Such 
was  the  origin  of  the  "  Paraguay  Reductions,"  which 
have  won  such  enthusiastic  admiration  from  writers 
like  Chateaubriand,  Buffon,  de  Maistre,  Haller, 
Montesquieu,  Robertson,  Mackintosh,  Howitt,  Mar- 
shall, Muratori,  Charlevoix,  Schirmbeck,  Grasset, 
Kobler,  du  Graty,  Gothain,  and  even  Voltaire.  The 


302  The  Jesuits 

most  recent  eulogist  of  all  is  Cunninghame-Graham  in 
his  "  Vanished  Arcadia."  The  villages  in  which  these 
converted  Indians  lived  were  called  "  reductions," 
because  the  natives  had  been  brought  back 
(re,  ducir)  from  the  wilds  and  forests  by  the  preaching 
of  the  missionaries  to  live  there  in  organized  com- 
munities under  Christian  laws. 

The  first  reduction  was  fyegun  in  1609,  in  the  province 
of  Guayara,  approximately  the  present  Brazilian 
territory  of  Parana.  In  1610  another  was  inaugurated 
on  the  Rio  Paranapanema ;  in  1611  the  Reduction  of 
San  Ignacio-min{,  and,  between  that  year  and  1630, 
eleven  others  with  a  total  population  of  about  10,000 
Indians.  The  savages  flocked  to  them  from  all 
quarters,  for  these  reservations  afforded  the  only 
protection  from  the  organized  bands  of  man-hunters 
who  scoured  the  country  —  the  Mamelukes,  as  they 
were  called  because  of  their  relentless  ferocity.  They 
were  also  described  as  "  Paulistas,"  probably  because 
they  generally  foregathered  in  the  district  of  lower 
Brazil,  known  as  St.  Paul.  These  wretches,  half- 
breeds  or  the  offscourings  of  every  race,  made  light  of 
royal  decrees  or  the  angry  fulminations  of  helpless 
governors,  and  when  they  could  find  no  victims  in  the 
forests,  did  not  hesitate  to  attack  the  Reductions 
themselves.  These  raids  began  ini6i8.  In  1630  alone, 
according  to  Huonder  (in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia) 
no  less  than  30,000  Indians  were  either  murdered  or 
carried  off  into  slavery  in  what  is  now  the  Brazilian 
state  of  Rio  Grande  do  Sul. 

This  led  to  the  great  exodus.  Father  Simon  Maceta 
abandoned  the  northern  or  Guayara  mission  altogether, 
and  taking  the  survivors  of  the  massacres,  along  with 
the  Indians  who  were  every  day  hurrying  in  from  the 
forests,  led  them  to  the  stations  on  the  Parana  and 
Uruguay.  It  was  a  difficult  journey,  and  only  12,000 


The  Two  Americas  303 

reached  their  destination,  but  they  served  to  reinforce 
the  population  already  there,  and  in  1648  the  Governor 
of  Buenos  Aires  reported  that  in  nineteen  Reductions 
there  was  a  population  of  30,548;  by  1677  it  had  risen 
to  58,118.  He  found  also  that  they  had  determined 
to  live  no  longer  as  sheep,  waiting  to  be  devoured  by 
the  first  human  wolves  that  might  descend  on  them, 
but  were  fully  armed  and  disciplined  by  their  Jesuit 
preceptors.  Indeed,  in  1640  ten  years  after  the 
Guarani  massacre,  they  could  put  a  well-trained  army 
in  the  field,  not  only  against  the  Mamelukes,  but  against 
the  Portuguese,  who,  from  time  to  time,  attempted  an 
invasion  of  Spanish  territory  from  Brazil.  This 
military  formation  was  not  only  permitted  but  en- 
couraged by  the  king.  He  repeatedly  sent  the  Indians 
muskets  and  ammunition,  and  later  they  built  an 
armory  themselves,  and  made  their  own  powder. 
They  had  their  regular  drills  and  sham  battles,  with 
both  infantry  and  cavalry,  which  did  splendid  service 
year  after  year  in  repelling  invasions  and  suppressing 
rebellions.  Nor  did  they  ever  cost  the  crown  a  penny 
for  such  services.  Loyalty  to  the  king  was  inculcated, 
and  Philip  V  declared  in  a  famous  decree  that  he  had 
no  more  faithful  subjects  than  the  Indians  of  Paraguay. 
The  Indians  of  the  Reductions  were  taught  all  the 
trades,  and  became  carpenters,  joiners,  painters, 
sculptors,  masons,  goldsmiths,  tailors,  weavers,  dyers, 
bakers,  butchers,  tanners  etc.,  and  their  artistic  ability 
is  still  seen  in  the  ruins  of  the  missions.  They  were 
also  cultivators  and  herdsmen,  and  some  of  the  stations 
could  count  as  many  as  30,000  sheep  and  100,000 
head  of  cattle.  They  built  fine  roads  leading  to  the 
other  Reductions,  and,  on  the  great  waterways  of  the 
Parana  alone,  as  many  as  2000  boats  were  employed 
transporting  the  merchandise  of  the  various  centres. 
They  were,  above  all,  taught  their  religion,  and  their 


304  The  Jesuits 

morals  were  so  pure  that  the  Bishop  of  Buenos  Aires 
wrote  to  the  king  that  he  thought  no  mortal  sin  was 
ever  committed  in  the  Reductions.  The  churches 
occupied  the  central  place  in  the  villages,  and  their 
ruins  show  what  architectural  works  these  men  of  the 
forest  were  capable  of  accomplishing.  The  streets  were 
laid  out  in  parallel  line's,  and  the  principal  ones  were 
paved.  In  course  of  time  the  primitive  huts  were 
replaced  by  solid  stone  houses  with  tiled  roofs,  and 
were  so  constructed  that  connecting  verandas  enabled 
the  people  to  walk  from  house  to  house,  under  shelter, 
from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  settlement. 

The  Reductions  extended  as  far  as  Bolivia  on  one 
side,  and  to  northern  Patagonia  on  the  other,  and  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Andes.  Altogether  there  were 
about  a  hundred  of  them,  and  as  their  formation 
required  the  subduing  and  transforming  of  the  wildest 
type  of  savage  into  a  civilized  man,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  in  effecting  this  stupendous  result  as  many  as 
twenty-nine  Jesuits  suffered  death  by  martyrdom. 

In  1598  the  Jesuits  Medrano  and  Figuero  were  in 
Nueva  Granada  or  what  is  now  called  The  United 
States  of  Colombia.  They  also  buried  themselves  in 
the  forests,  after  having  done  their  best  to  reform  the 
morals  of  the  colonists  at  Bogota.  Not  that  they  had 
abandoned  the  city;  on  the  contrary,  they  established 
a  college  there  in  1604,  and  others  later  in  Pamplona, 
Merida  and  Honda.  At  first  the  natives  fled  from  them 
in  terror,  but  little  by  little,  the  presents  which  these 
strange  white  men  pressed  on  them  won  their  con- 
fidence, and  helped  to  persuade  them  to  settle  in 
Reductions.  Three  of  the  Fathers  lost  their  lives  in 
that  work,  devoured  by  cougars  or  stung  by  venomous 
serpents.  Unfortunately,  the  bishop  was  persuaded 
that  the  Indian  settlements  were  merely  mercantile 
establishments  gotten  up  by  the  Jesuits  for  money- 


The  Two  Americas  305 

making,  and  all  the  fruit  of  many  years  of  dangers 
and  hardships  was  taken  out  of  their  hands  and  given 
to  others. 

There  was  no  one,  however,  to  covet  the  place  of 
Peter  Claver,  who  was  devoting  himself  to  the  care 
of  the  filthy,  diseased,  and  brutalized  negroes  who  were 
being  literally  dumped  by  tens  of  thousands  in  Carta- 
gena, to  be  sold  into  slavery  to  the  colonists.  He  had 
come  out  from  Spain  in  1610,  after  the  old  lay-brother, 
Alfonso  Rodriguez,  had  led  him  to  the  heights  of 
sanctity  and  determined  his  vocation  in  the  New 
World.  His  work  was  revolting,  but  Claver  loved  it, 
and  as  soon  as  a  vessel  arrived  he  was  on  hand  with 
his  interpreters.  They  hurried  down  into  the  fetid 
holds  with  food,  clothing  and  cordials,  which  had 
been  begged  from  the  people  in  the  town.  It  did  not 
worry  Claver  that  the  poor  wretches  were  sick  with 
small  pox  or  malignant  fevers;  he  would  carry  them 
out  on  his  back,  nurse  them  into  health,  and  even 
bury  them  with  his  own  hands  when  they  died.  The 
unfortunate  blacks  had  never  seen  anything  like  that 
before,  and  they  eagerly  listened  to  all  he  had  to  say 
about  God,  and  made  no  difficulty  about  being  baptized, 
striving  as  well  as  they  could  to  shape  their  lives 
along  the  lines  of  conduct  he  traced  out  for  them. 

He  was  on  his  feet  night  and  day,  going  from  bed 
to  bed  in  the  rude  hospitals,  with  supplies  of  fruit 
and  wine  for  the  sick.  He  even  brought  bands  of 
music  to  play  for  them,  and  showed  them  pictures 
of  holy  scenes  in  the  life  of  Christ  to  help  their  dull 
intellects  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  his  words.  No 
wonder  that  often  when  he  was  among  the  lepers, 
who  were  his  especial  pets,  people  saw  a  bright  light 
shine  round  him.  His  biographers  tell  us  that  he  did 
not  find  these  ordinary  sufferings  enough  for  him,  and 
though  he  wore  a  hair-shirt  and  an  iron  cross  with 

20 


306  The  Jesuits 

sharp  points  all  day  long,  he  was  scourging  himself  to 
blood  at  night  and  praying  for  hours  for  his  negroes. 
He  died  on  September  8,  1654,  and  is  now  ranked  among 
the  saints,  like  his  old  master,  Brother  Alfonso. 

To  the  long  line  of  islands,  alternately  French  and 
English,  which  form,  as  it  were,  the  eastern  wall  of  the 
Caribbean  Sea,  and  are  known  as  the  Lesser  Antilles, 
the  French  Jesuits  were  sent  in  1638.  They  are 
respectively  Trinidad,  Grenada,  Saint- Vincent, 
Martinique,  Guadeloupe,  and  near  the  northern  ex- 
tremity of  the  line,  one  that  is  of  peculiarly  pathetic 
interest,  Saint  Christopher,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
popularly  called,  Saint  Kitts.  When  the  French 
expedition  under  d'Esnambuc  landed  at  Saint  Kitts 
in  1625,  they  found  the  English  already  in  possession, 
but  like  sensible  men,  instead  of  cutting  each  other's 
throats,  the  two  nationalities  divided  the  island 
between  them  and  settled  down  quietly,  each  one 
attending  to  'its  own  affairs.  In  1635  'the  French 
annexed  Guadeloupe  and  Martinique,  and,  .later  still, 
Saint-Croix,  Saint-Martin  and  a  few  others. 

The  population  of  these  islands  consisted  of  white 
settlers  and  their  negro  and  Indian  slaves.  They 
were  cared  for  spiritually  by  two  Dominicans,  one  of 
whom,  Tertre,  has  written  a  history  of  the  islands. 
But  these  priests  had  no  intercourse  with  the  savages, 
whose  languages  they  did  not  understand,  and  hence 
to  fill  the  gap,  three  Jesuits,  one  of  them  a  lay-brother, 
were  sent  to  Martinique,  arriving  there  on  Good 
Friday,  1638.  They  began  in  the  usual  way,  namely 
by  martyrdom.  Two  of  them  were  promptly  killed 
by  the  savages.  Others  hurried  to  carry  on  their  work 
but  many  succumbed  to  the  climate,  and  others  to  the 
hardships  inseparable  from  that  kind  of  apostolate. 
An  interesting  arrival,  though  as  late  as  1674,  was 
that  of  Father  Joseph-Antoine  Poncet,  one  of  the 


The  Two  Americas  307 

apostles  of  Canada,  who  is  remembered  for  having 
brought  the  great  Ursuline,  Marie  de  1' Incarnation,  to 
Quebec,  and  also  for  having  been  tortured  by  New  York 
Mohawks  at  the  very  place  where  Isaac  Jogues  had 
suffered  martyrdom  a  few  years  before.  Poncet  was 
old  when  he  went  to  Martinique  and  he  died  there  the 
following  year.  The  names  of  de  la  Barre,  Martinidre, 
de  Tracy  and  Iberville,  all  of  them  familiar  to  students 
of  Canadian  history,  occur  in  the  chronicles  of  the 
Antilles. 

For  people  of  Irish  blood  these  islands,  especially 
Saint  Kitts  and  Montserrat,  are  of  a  thrilling  interest. 
On  both  of  them  were  found  numbers  of  exiled  Irish 
Catholics  held  as  slaves.  As  early  as  1632  Father 
White  on  his  way  to  Maryland  saw  them  at  Saint 
Kitts.  He  tells  us  in  his  "  Narrative "  that  he 
"  stopped  there  ten  days,  being  invited  to  do  so  in  a 
friendly  way  by  the  English  Governor  and  two  Catholic 
captains.  The  Governor  of  the  French  colony  on  the 
same  island  treated  me  with  the  most  marked  kind- 
ness." He  does  not  inform  us  whether  or  not  he  did 
any  ministerial  work  with  them  but  in  all  likelihood 
he  did.  He  is  equally  reticent  about  Montserrat,  and 
contents  himself  with  saying  that  "it  is  inhabited  by 
Irishmen  who  were  expelled  from  Virginia,  on  account 
of  their  Catholic  Faith."  He  remained  at  Saint  Kitts 
only  a  diw,  and  on  this  point  his  "  Relation  "  is  very 
disappointing.  In  1638  the  Bishop  of  Tuam  sent  out 
a  priest  to  the  island,  but  he  died  soon  after.  He  was 
probably  a  secular  priest,  for  in  the  following  year  the 
bishop  was  authorized  by  Propaganda  to  send  out  some 
religious.  But  there  is  no  information  available  about 
what  was  done  until  1652,  when  an  Irish  Jesuit  was 
secured  for  them.  In  the  "  Documents  inedits  "  of 
Carayon  he  is  called  Destriches,  which  may  have  been 
Stritch,  but  there  is  no  mention  of  either  name  in  any 


308  The  Jesuits 

of  the  menologies;  Hughes,  in  his  "  History  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus  in  North  America  "  (I,  470),  calls 
him  Christopher  Bathe.  He  was  not,  however,  the 
first  choice.  A  Father  Henry  Malajon  had  been 
proposed,  but  the  General  did  not  allow  him  to  go. 
A  Welshman  named  Buckley  was  then  suggested,  but 
though  his  application  was  ratified  he  never  left  Europe. 
Next  a  Father  Maloney  offered  himself,  but  was  kept 
in  Belgium;  finally,  however,  Father  Christopher 
Bathe  or  Stritch  arrived. 

The  missionary  found  there  a  very  great  multitude 
of  enslaved  Irish  exiles,  for  on  April  i,  1653,  the  London 
Council  gave  "  license  to  Sir  John  Clotworthie  to 
transport  to  America  500  natural  Irishmen."  On 
September  6,  1653,  he  asked  leave  to  transport  400 
Irish  children.  Ten  days  later  liberty  was  granted  to 
Richard  Netherway  of  Bri'stol  to  transport  from 
Ireland  one  hundred  Irish  tories.  When  Jamaica  was 
captured  by  the  English  in  1655,  one  thousand  Irish 
girls  and  a  like  number  of  Irish  boys  were  sent  there. 
The  earlier  throngs  had  been  sent  first  to  Virginia,  but 
had  been  driven  over  to  the  islands,  as  we  learn  from 
White's  "  Narrative."  The  English  authorities  in 
Ireland  wrote  to  Lord  Thurlow:  "  Although  we  must 
use  force  in  taking  them  up,  yet  it  being  so  much  for 
their  own  good  and  likely  to  be  of  great  advantage  to 
the  public,  it  is  not  the  least  doubted  but  that  you  may 
have  as  many  as  you  wish."  He  offers  to  send  1500 
or  2000  boys.  "  They  will  thus,"  he  said,  "  be  made 
good  Christians."  The  first  of  these  "  good 
Christians  "  were  found  by  Father  Bathe  when  he 
arrived  in  Saint  Kitts  in  1652  and  they  eagerly  came 
to  the  little  chapel  which  he  built  on  the  dividing  line 
between  the  English  and  French  settlements.  For 
three  months  he  was  busy  from  dawn  till  nightfall 
saying  Mass,  hearing  confessions,  baptizing  babies  and 


The  Two  Americas  309 

preaching.  After  that  he  started  for  Montserrat 
which  was  entirely  under  English  control  and  hence 
he  was  compelled  to  go  there  disguised  as  a  lumber 
merchant  who  was  looking  for  timber.  As  soon  as  he 
landed  he  passed  the  word  to  the  first  Irishman  he  met 
and  the  news  spread  like  wildfire.  A  place  of  meeting 
was  chosen  in  the  woods  where  every  day  Mass  was 
said  and  the  people  went  to  confession  and  communion. 
That  took  up  the  whole  morning,  and  in  the  afternoon 
they  began  chopping  down  the  trees  so  as  to  carry  out 
the  deception.  Unfortunately,  the  Caribs  found  them 
one  day,  and  killed  some  of  them,  but  we  have  no  more 
details  of  the  extent  of  the  disaster. 

By  the  time  Father  Bathe  got  back  to  Saint  Kitts, 
the  English  had  taken  alarm  and  had  forbidden  their 
Irish  slaves  ever  to  set  foot  on  the  French  territory. 
But  there  must  have  been  disobedience  to  the  order, 
for  one  night,  after  they  had  returned  home,  a  descent 
was  made  upon  their  houses,  and  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  of  the  most  notable  among  them  were 
flung  into  a  ship  and  cast  on  Crab  Island,  two  hundred 
leagues  away,  where  they  were  left  to  starve,  while 
those  who  remained  behind  at  Saint  Kitts  were  treated 
with  the  most  frightful  inhumanity.  One  instance  is 
cited  of  a  young  girl  who,  for  having  refused  to  go  to 
the  Protestant  church,  was  dragged  by  the  hair  of  her 
head  along  the  road,  and  treated  with  such  brutality 
that  some  of  the  more  timid  of  the  victims  were  terrified 
and  obeyed  the  order  about  keeping  away  from  the 
chapel.  The  greater  number,  however,  came  to  Mass 
secretly,  walking  all  night  through  dense  forests  and 
at  the  edge  of  precipices,  so  as  to  escape  the  sentries 
posted  along  the  ordinary  road.  Two  very  old  men 
were  conspicuous  in  this  display  of  faith. 

The  castaways  on  Crab  Island  kept  life  in  their 
bodies  for  a  few  days  by  eating  what  grass  or  roots 


310  The  Jesuits 

they  could  find  or  by  gathering  the  shell-fish  on  the 
beach.  At  last  to  their  great  delight  a  ship  was 
sighted  in  the  distance  and  when  they  hailed  it,  came  to 
take  them  off.  Unfortunately,  however,  it  was  too 
small  for  such  a  crowd,  and  only  as  many  as  it  was 
safe  to  receive  were  allowed  on  board.  The  rest  had 
to  be  abandoned  to  their  fate.  What  became  of  them 
nobody  ever  knew.  It  is  supposed  that  they  made 
a  raft  and  were  lost  somewhere  out  on  the  ocean. 
Even  those  who  sailed  away  came  to  grief.  When  they 
reached  Santo  Domingo,  they  were  not  permitted  to 
land,  because  they  came  from  Saint  Christopher,  which 
made  the  Spaniards  in  the  fort  suspect  a  trick.  Then 
they  were  caught  by  a  tornado  and  carried  four  hundred 
leagues  away.  At  one  time  hunger  had  brought  them 
so  low  that  they  were  on  the  point  of  casting  lots  to 
see  who  should  be  killed  and  eaten,  but  fortunately 
they  caught  some  fish  and  that  sustained  them  till 
they  reached  the  land.  What  land  it  was  we  do  not 
know. 

A  characteristic  example  of  Irish  feminine  virtue 
is  recorded  in  this  very  interesting  account,  which  is 
worth  repeating  here.  A  young  girl,  for  her  better 
protection,  had  been  disguised  as  a  boy  by  her  father 
when  both  were  exiled.  After  he  died,  she  obtained 
work  in  the  household  of  a  respectable  family  where  her 
efficiency  so  charmed  the  mistress  of  the  household 
that  the  husband  grew  jealous  of  the  friendship  of  his 
wife  for  this  estimable  man-servant.  To  avert  a 
domestic  disaster,  the  good  girl  had  to  make  known 
her  identity  and  she  was  then  more  esteemed  than 
ever.  What  became  of  her  ultimately  is  not  recorded. 
Meantime,  Father  Bathe  had  gathered  what  was  left 
of  his  poor  people  and  carried  them  off  to  Guadeloupe, 
where  there  were  no  English.  God  spared  him  for  five 
years  more,  and  he  went  from  island  to  island  under 


The  Two  Americas  311 

all  sorts  of  disguises,  if  there  was  danger  of  meeting 
the  English.  He  even  succeeded  in  converting  not  a 
few  of  the  persecutors. 

Hughes  informs  us  further  that  in  1667  an  Irish 
priest  named  John  Grace  returned  to  Europe  from 
the  islands,  and  reported  on  the  deplorable  condition 
of  his  compatriots  in  the  Caribbean.  Passing  through 
Martinique,  Guadeloupe  and  Antigua  he  heard  the 
confessions  of  more  than  three  hundred  of  them. 
He  related,  also,  that  fifty  of  the  three  hundred  had 
died  while  he  was  there.  In  Barbadoes  there  were 
many  thousands  who  had  no  priests  and  were  con- 
forming to  Protestantism.  In  St.  Bartholomew,  there 
were  four  hundred  Irish  Catholics  who  had  never 
seen  a  priest.  At  Montserrat,  however,  Governor 
Stapleton  was  an  Irishman  and  a  Catholic,  and  con- 
sequently there  was  no  difficulty  in  having  a  priest 
go  there.  There  were  as  many  as  four  hundred 
Catholics  at  that  place  and  they  formed  six  to  one 
of  the  population.  These  islands  of  the  Caribbean 
were  the  favorite  hiding  places  of  the  "  filibusteros," 
a  set  of  abandoned  men  of  various  nationalities, 
French,  Dutch  and  English,  who  were  lying  in  wait 
for  the  rich  galleons  of  Spain,  on  their  way  from  the 
silver  mines  of  Peru  to  the  palaces  of  Madrid.  Their 
life  was  a  continued  series  of  daring  adventures, 
robberies,  massacres  and  wild  debauchery.  They  were 
ready  for  any  expedition  and  against  any  foe.  With 
them  nothing  could  be  done,  but  with  the  great  num- 
bers of  negro  slaves  who  were  sold  at  Martinique  and 
elsewhere  there  was  ample  opportunity  for  apostolic 
work.  It  was  a  most  revolting  task;  the  whites, 
regarded  them  as  devils,  but  the  Fathers  took  care 
of  them  and  sent  many  of  them  to  heaven 

It  was  from  the  Antilles  that  the  French  Jesuits 
went  to  Guiana.  Its  conversion  had  been  attempted 


312  The  Jesuits 

in  1560  by  two  Dominicans,  but  they  were  both 
martyred  almost  on  their  arrival.  No  other  effort 
was  made  until  late  in  the  following  century,  when  in 
1643  two  Capuchins  essayed  it,  only  to  be  killed. 
Four  years  before  that,  however,  the  Jesuits  Meland 
and  Pelliprat  entered  the  country  at  another  point 
and  succeeded  in  subduing  the  savage  Galibis,  who 
were  particularly  noted  for  ferocity.  In  1653  Pelliprat 
published  a  grammar  and  a  dictionary  of  their  language; 
in  the  following  year  Aubergeon  and  Gueimu  were 
killed;  then  the  Dutch  took  possession  of  the  country, 
expelled  the  Jesuits  and  obliterated  every  vestige  of 
Catholicity.  Nevertheless,  the  missionaries  returned 
later  and  renewed  their  work  with  the  intractable 
natives.  In  1674  Grillet  and  Bechamel  started  for  the 
interior,  and  were  followed  later  by  Lombard,  who, 
after  fifteen  years  of  heroic  toil,  erected  a  church  at 
the  mouth  of  the  River  Kourou  to  the  northwest  of 
Cayenne.  There  he  labored  for  twenty-three  years, 
and  in  1 733  was  able  to  report  to  his  fellow  missionary, 
de  la  Neuville:  "Acquainted  as  you  are  with  the 
fickleness  of  our  Indians,  you  will  no  doubt  be  surprised 
to  hear  that  their  inconstancy  has  been  overcome. 
The  horror  with  which  they  now  regard  their  former 
superstitions,  their  regularity  in  frequently  approach- 
ing the  sacraments,  their  assiduity  in  assisting  at  the 
Divine  service,  the  profound  sentiments  of  piety  which 
they  manifest  at  the  hour  of  death,  are  effectual  proofs 
of  a  sincere  and  lasting  conversion." 

Father  Grillet 's  story  of  the  capture  of  the  French 
fort  in  Guiana  makes  interesting  reading.  He  went 
out  with  the  garrison  to  meet  the  English  who  were 
landing  from  their  ships,  but  the  French  commander 
was  killed  and  his  men  fled.  Grillet,  with  some  others, 
made  his  way  to  the  forests  and  swamps  of  the  interior, 
but  was  finally  captured  at  the  point  of  the  pistol. 


The  Two  Americas  313 

He  was  ordered  to  hand  over  his  money,  but  as  he  had 
none,  he  would  probably  have  been  killed  had  not 
a  party  of  English  officers  recognized  him  as  the  priest 
who  had  rendered  them  some  service  over  in  the 
Antilles  some  time  before.  They  led  him  to  Lord 
Willoughby  the  governor,  who  showed  him  every 
attention.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  know  that  these 
gentlemen  carried  on  their  conversation  with  the  priest, 
in  French  and  Latin.  When  the  ship  arrived  at 
Barbadoes,  Grillet  was  lodged  with  a  Scotch  gentleman 
whose  son-in-law  was  a  Protestant  minister;  "  a  clever 
man,  a  good  philosopher  and  well  up  in  his  theology,'' 
says  Grillet.  They  discussed  religious  questions 
amicably,  and  on  Sunday  the  priest  had  the  satisfaction 
to  hear  that  the  parson  told  his  congregation  how  he 
"  wished  they  had  the  same  sorrow  for  their  sins  as 
Catholics  have  when  they  go  to  confession." 

Grillet  remained  a  month  with  his  Protestant 
friends,  Lord  Willoughby  coming  occasionally  to  visit 
him.  From  Barbadoes  he  was  conducted  to  Mont- 
serrat,  where  "  Milord,  after  celebrating  Christmas  ten 
days  later  than  we  do,"  notes  Grillet,  "  for  the  English 
did  not  accept  the  Gregorian  Calendar,"  then  handed 
him  over  to  a  Catholic  colonel  of  a  Yorkshire  regiment, 
who  finally  delivered  him  safe  and  sound  to  the  French 
Governor  de  la  Barre.  This  was  the  de  la  Barre  who 
was  afterwards  to  figure  in  Canadian  history.  Grillet 
then  returned  to  his  old  mission  work  at  Cayenne, 
for  the  English  had  abandoned  it,  and  with  Father 
Be~chamel  set  out  to  explore  the  interior,  with  a  view  to 
future  missionary  establishments.  With  no  other 
provision  than  a  little  cassava  bread,  and  no  other 
escort  than  a  negro  and  a  few  Indians,  they  began 
a  journey  of  1920  miles,  through  forests  and  swamps 
and  across  mountains  and  down  rivers  which  were 
continually  broken  by  cataracts  merely  to  find  where 


314  The  Jesuits 

the  Indians  were  living,  so  as  to  send  them  missionaries 
later.  They  had  started  from  Cayenne  on  January  25, 
1674,  and  returned  there  on  June  27.  Both  died 
shortly  after. 

Along  both  banks  of  the  Oyapoch,  throughout  its 
whole  course,  missions  were  established  by  other  valiant 
apostles  who,  as  a  French  historian  relates,  had  formed 
the  gigantic  project  of  uniting  by  a  chain  of  stations 
both  extremities  of  Guiana.  Indeed,  the  church  on 
the  Kourou  was  only  an  incident  in  this  work.  Eleven 
years  before  that,  Arnaud  d'Ayma  had  fought  his  way 
to  the  Pirioux,  the  remotest  of  all  the  known  tribes. 
There  he  lived  like  the  savages  in  a  miserable  hut, 
spending  every  moment  among  them  in  studying 
their  language  and  teaching  them  in  turn  the  truths  of 
salvation.  He  then  founded  a  mission  on  the  Oyapoch 
where  he  collected  the  entire  tribe  of  the  Caranes. 
Meantime,  D'Ausillac  looked  after  the  Toeoyenes, 
the  Maowrioux,  and  the  Maraxones  on  the  Ouanari. 
Up  to  the  time  when  de  Choiseul,  minister  of  Louis 
XV,  drove  the  Jesuits  out  of  Guiana,  one  hundred 
and  eleven  of  them  had  devoted  their  lives  to  the 
evangelization  of  that  country. 

BandeHer,  writing  in  "  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia  " 
(IV-I23),  tells  us  that  in  the  district  in  which  Cartagena 
was  situated,  "  the  religious  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
were  the  first  during  the  Colonial  period  to  found 
colleges  for  secondary  instruction ;  eight  or  ten  colleges 
were  opened  in  which  the  youth  of  the  country  and 
the  sons  of  Spaniards  were  educated,  In  the  Jesuit 
College  of  Bogota  the  first  instruction  in  physics  and 
mathematics  was  given.  In  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jesuits  by  Charles  III  the  Church  in  New  Granada 
lost  her  principal  and  most  efficacious  aid  to  the 

civilization  of  the  country To  this  day  the 

traveller  may  see  the  effects  of  this  arbitrary  act,  in 


The  Two  Americas  315 

the  immense  plains  of  the  regions  of  Casanare,  con- 
verted in  the  space  of  one  century  into  pasture  lands 
for  cattle,  but  which  were  once  a  source  of  great 
wealth,  and  which  would  have  been  even  more  so. 
It  is  only  within  the  last  ten  years  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  owing  to  the  peace  and  liberty  which  she 
now  enjoys,  has  turned  her  eyes  once  more  to  Casanare ; 
a  vicariate  Apostolic  has  been  erected  there,  governed 
by  a  bishop  of  the  Order  of  St.  Augustine,  who  with  the 
members  of  his  order  labours  among  the  savages  and 
semi-savages  of  these  plains." 

The  first  Jesuits,  as  we  have  already  said,  arrived  in 
Mexico  in  September,  1572.  They  were  sent  out  at 
the  expense  of  the  king,  but  as  he  did  nothing  more, 
a  wealthy  benefactor  immediately  put  his  money  at 
their  disposal  and  gave  them  a  site  for  a  college  and 
church.  The  latter  was  erected  with  amazing  expedi- 
tion at  a  trifling  expense,  for  three  thousand  Indians 
who  had  heard  that  the  Fathers  were  going  to  take 
care  of  their  spiritual  welfare  worked  at  it  for  three 
months.  The  structure  was  declared  to  be  muy 
hermoso  por  dentro,  but  as  much  could  not  be  said  of 
the  exterior.  It  was  simply  a  thatched  structure 
and  was  long  known  by  the  name  of  Japalteopan. 
Their  college,  which  took  more  time,  was  called  St. 
Ildefonso.  Guadalajara,  Zacatecas  and  Oaxaca  also 
became  Jesuit  centres,  while  Chihuahua,  Sinaloa, 
Sonora,  and,  later  Lower  California  were  their  fields 
of  labor  among  the  savages.  It  may  be  noted  here 
that  Father  Sanchez  was  one  of  the  presiding  engineers 
in  the  work  of  the  Nochistongo  tunnel  on  which 
471,154  men  were  employed.  The  purpose  of  the 
work  was  to  drain  the  valley  of  Mexico. 

Among  the  very  early  missionaries  of  Mexico  was 
an  Irish  Jesuit  named  Michael  Wadding,  though  he 
was  known  among  the  Spaniards  as  Miguel  Godinez. 


316  The  Jesuits 

He  was  born  at  Waterford  in  1591,  but  his  mother 
was  a  Frenchwoman,  named  Marie  Valois.  He  made 
his  studies  in  Salamanca  and  entering  the  Society 
April  15,  1609  was  sent  to  Mexico  in  the  following 
year.  He  labored  for  a  long  time  in  the  rude  missions 
of  Sinaloa  and  won  to  the  Faith  the  whole  tribe  of  the 
Basirvas,  and  then  taught  for  several  years  in  the 
colleges.  He  was  famous  as  a  director  of  souls,  and 
wrote  a  "  Teologia  mistica  "  which,  was  not  published 
until  forty  years  after  his  death;  however,  it  made 
up  for  the  delay  by  going  through  ten  editions.  His 
editor,  Manuel  La  Reguera,  S.  J.,  says  that  he  also 
wrote  a  "  Life  of  Sister  Mary  of  Jesus,"  a  holy  religious 
whom  he  was  directing  in  the  way  of  perfection. 

The  Jesuit  mission  work  in  Mexico  which  has 
attracted  most  attention  is  that  of  Fathers  Kino, 
Salvatierra,  Ugarte  and  their  associates.  They  were 
engaged  mostly  in  the  evangelization  of  the  Peninsula 
of  Lower  California  and  the  vast  northern  district  of 
Mexico,  known  as  the  Pimeria,  or  land  of  the  Pima 
Indians,  which  extended  into  what  is  now  the  State  of 
Arizona.  The  success  achieved  there  and  the  resources 
of  the  "  Pious  Fund  "  which  Salvatierra  had  gathered 
made  the  work  of  Junipero  Serra  and  the  Franciscans 
in  Upper  California  possible  in  later  days. 

Gilmary  Shea  (Colonial  Days,  p.  527)  maintains 
that  Eusebio  Kino  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  American 
missionaries.  Many  historians  claim  that  he  was  a 
German  and  say  that  his  name  "  Kino "  was  an 
adaptation  of  Kuhn.  That  such  is  not  the  case  is 
shown  by  Alegre  in  his  history  of  the  Jesuits  in  Mexico ; 
by  Sommervogel  in  his  "  Bibliotheque  des  ecrivains  " 
and  by  Bolton,  who  has  just  published  Kino's  long 
lost  "  Autobiography."  Hubert  Bancroft  pronounces 
for  Kuhn,  but  he  publishes  an  autograph  map  which 
is  signed  "  carta  autoptica  a  Patre  Eusebio  Chino;" 


The  Two  Americas  317 

Huonder,  in  "  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,"  declares 
him  to  be  a  German  of  Welch  Tyrol,  but  the  "  Welch  " 
Tyrol  is  precisely  that  part  of  the  country  where  there 
are  no  Germans.  The  Chino  family  still  exists,  near 
Trent  and  has  never  spoken  anything  but  Italian. 
The  change  from  Ch  to  K  had  to  be  made  to  prevent 
the  Spaniards  from  thinking  he  was  a  Chinaman; 
furthermore  the  ch  in  Spanish  being  always  soft  would 
not  represent  the  Italian  letters  when  they  are  pro- 
nounced k. 

Kino  was  born  on  August  10,  1644,  and  entered  the 
Society  of  Jesus  in  Bavaria  on  November  20,  1665. 
He  subsequently  taught  mathematics  at  Ingolstadt, 
and  while  occupying  that  post  applied  for  the  foreign 
missions.  He  left  the  university  in  1678,  but  did  not 
reach  Mexico  until  late  in  1681.  The  reason  of  the 
delay  was  his  assignment  as  an  observer  of  the  famous 
comet  of  1680  and  1681.  During  that  time,  he  lived  in 
Cadiz,  but  he  did  not  publish  the  result  of  his  obser- 
vations until  after  his  arrival  in  Mexico.  The  book 
has  a  very  portentous  title  and  is  listed  in  Sommervogel 
as:  "  Exposicion  Astronomica  de  el  Cometa,  que  el 
ano  de  1680,  por  los  meses  de  Noviembre  y  Diziembre, 
y  este  ano  de  1681  por  los  meses  de  Enero  y  Febrero, 
se  ha  visto  en  todo  el  mondo,  y  le  ha  observado  en 
Ciudad  de  Cadiz  el  P.  Eusebio  Francisco  Kino,  de  la 
Compafii  de  Jesus,  con  licencia  en  Mexico  por  Fran- 
cisco Rodriguez  Lupercio,  1681."  Possibly  this  pomp- 
ous announcement  was  intended  as  an  apology  for 
Kino's  audacity  in  questioning  the  findings  of  a  famous 
astronomer  of  the  period  who  rejoiced  in  the  name 
and  title  Don  Carlos  de  Siguenza  y  Gongora,  Cos- 
mografo  y  Mathematico  Regio  en  la  Academia 
Mexicana. 

The  settlement  of  Lower  California  had  been 
attempted  as  early  as  1535  by  a  Franciscan  who 


318  The  Jesuits 

landed  with  Cortes  at  Santa  Cruz  Bay  near  the  present 
La  Paz.  "  After  a  year  of  privations",  says  Engel- 
hardt,  "  which  had  cost  the  famous  conqueror  $300,- 
ooo,  the  project  had  to  be  abandoned.  Another  effort 
was  made  in  1596,  but  the  mission  did  not  last  a  single 
year.  Almost  a  century  later,  namely  in  1683,  the 
Jesuit  Fathers  Kino  and  Goni,  along  with  Fray  Jose 
Guijosa  of  the  Order  of  St.  John  of  God,  accompanied 
Admiral  Otondo  on  an  expedition  to  that  unhappy 
country. ' '  They  embarked  on  the  ' '  Limpia  Concepcion' ' 
and  the  "  San  Jose  y  San  Francisco  Javier  "  and  set  sail 
on  January  18.  A  sloop  with  provisions  was  to  accom- 
pany them,  but  it  never  left  port.  The  voyage  lasted 
until  March  30,  and  on  that  day  they  entered  the 
harbor  of  La  Paz,  but  not  until  April  5  did  the  admiral 
set  foot  on  shore  to  take  solemn  possession  of  the  land. 
The  mission,  however,  lasted  only  a  short  time;  and 
thus  Spain  failed  for  the  third  time  to  establish  a  post 
in  desolate  Lower  Calfornia.  Kino  then  applied  for 
work  among  the  Pima  Indians.  His  offer  was  wel- 
comed by  the  provincial,  who  would  have  sent  him 
thither  immediately,  if  a  government  permission  as 
well  as  a  royal  assignment  of  funds  had  not  been 
prerequisites.  Neither  difficulty  dismayed  Kino;  he 
immediately  interviewed  the  viceroy  and  was  so 
eloquent  in  his  plea  that  he  received  not  only  permission 
and  financial  aid  to  work  in  the  new  field,  but  authoriza- 
tion for  whatever  post  he  might  choose  among  the 
Seris  of  Sonora.  When  that  much  was  accomplished, 
he  set  off  for  Guadalajara,  where  the  royal  audiencia 
was  in  session,  to  address  it  on  another  matter  which 
was  very  close  to  his  heart,  namely  the  abrogation  of 
the  stupid  policy  of  imposing  labor  on  the  convert 
Indians  in  the  mines  and  haciendas,  while  the  others 
who  refused  to  be  Christians  were  allowed  to  go  scot 
free.  It  was  putting  a  premium  on  paganism.  All 


The  Two  Americas  319 

that  he  could  get,  however,  from  the  audiencia  was 
a  five-year  exemption,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  as  far 
back  as  1607  Philip  III  had  ruled  that  for  ten  years  after 
baptism  every  convert  should  be  exempt  from  com- 
pulsory labor.  The  same  royal  order  had  been  renewed 
in  1618,  and  was  most  faithfully  observed  where  there 
were  no  mines  or  haciendas  to  put  the  converts  at  work. 

In  1764  the  Pimeria  was  the  northern  limit  of  Spain's 
possessions,  about  400  leagues  from  the  city  of  Mexico 
and  about  130  from  Sinaloa.  On  the  east  a  mountain 
range  separated  it  from  Taurumara,  and  on  the  west 
the  Gulf  of  California  bathed  its  shores  from  the  Yaqui 
River  to  the  Colorado.  Its  northern  boundary  was 
the  Hila,  Gila,  or  Xila  River,  and  its  southern,  the 
Yaqui.  According  to  Alegre  "  the  soil  is  rich,  there  is 
no  end  of  game,  such  as  lions,  tigers,  bears,  deer,  boars, 
rabbits  and  squirrels.  The  woods  are  full  of  serpents, 
poisonous  or  otherwise,  but  there  are  herbs  and  plants 
innumerable,"  which  possessed  most  wonderful  healing 
powers.  The  birds  were  numerous  and  "  two-headed 
eagles,"  the  reader  is  assured,  "  were  not  rare."  Kino, 
as  far  as  we  can  find,  makes  no  mention  of  "  two 
headed  eagles." 

The  people  were  robust  and  lived  to  an  extreme  old 
age,  except  where  the  fogs  of  the  lowland  prevailed. 
There  all  sorts  of  ailments  occur.  The  Pimas  were 
composed  of  a  number  of  tribes  such  as  the  Opas, 
Cocomaricopas,  Hudcoacanes,  and  the  Yumas.  They 
lived  on  both  sides  of  the  Gila  River  in  rancherias, 
which  the  missionaries  united  into  pueblos.  They 
numbered  in  all  about  30,000.  The  Sens  who  were 
found  along  the  Gulf  coast  were  mostly  identified  with 
the  Giuamas.  To  the  north  were  the  savage  Apaches. 

None  of  these  people  had  any  means  of  recording  the 
doings  of  the  past,  such  as  the  hieroglyphics  of  the 
Mexicans,  but  they  made  much  of  certain  traditions 


320  The  Jesuits 

which  they  refused  to  impart  to  strangers.  As  far  as 
could  be  ascertained,  they  had  no  sacrifice  or  idols, 
no  kind  of  worship  and  no  priests  except  the  wizards, 
whom  they  regarded  with  abject  terror.  Tatooing 
around  the  eyes  was  universal,  even  for  children.  At 
birth  a  sort  of  sponsor  for  the  child  was  summoned, 
and  he  was  given  more  authority  than  the  parent.  At 
death  all  the  trappings  and  household  belongings  of 
the  departed  were  buried  with  him.  They  believed  in 
divinations  like  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans, 
with  the  difference  that  the  creature  inspected  was 
not  a  bird  but  a  lobster.  Statues  and  emblems  were 
placed  on  the  roadsides,  before  which  every  passer-by 
had  to  leave  an  offering.  Alegre  gives  a  long  list  of 
their  superstitions,  some  of  which  Bancroft  denounces 
as  hideously  obscene.  The  initiation  of  the  warrior 
resembled  the  horrible  ritual  common  among  the 
northern  Mandans,  and  the  torture  of  captives,  even 
of  little  children,  by  old  squaws,  was  as  fiendish  as 
similar  practices  among  the  Iroquois. 

The  Jesuit  missions  among  these  people  were 
inaugurated  as  early  as  1637  or  1638,  by  Father 
Castano,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  Sonora  district 
by  Mendez,  but  the  Pima  section  to  which  Kino 
betook  himself  was  a  new  field.  He  called  his  first 
post  Nuestra  Senora  de  los  Dolores,  and  it  may  be 
found  on  the  map  just  north  of  Cucurpe  at  the  source 
of  the  river  called  Horcasitas  or  San  Miguel.  From 
there  he  developed  dependent  stations,  and  before 
1691,  he  had  three  at  San  Ignacio,  Remedies,  and 
San  Jose,  in  each  of  which  he  built  a  fine  church. 

"  The  work  which  Father  Kino  did  as  a  ranchman 
or  stockman,"  says  Bolton,  "would  alone  stamp  him  as 
an  unusual  business  man  and  make  him  worthy  of 
remembrance.  He  was  easily  the  cattle  king  of  his 
day  and  region.  The  stock  raising  industry  of  nearly 


The  Two  Americas  321 

20  places  on  the  modern  map  owes  its  beginnings  to 
this  indefatigable  man.  And  it  must  not  be  supposed 
that  he  did  this  for  private  gain  for  he  did  not  own  a 
single  animal.  It  was  to  furnish  a  food  supply  for  the 
Indians  of  the  missions  established  and  to  be  established 
and  to  give  these  missions  a  basis  of  economic  prosperity 
and  independence.  Thus  we  find  Saeta  thanking  him 
for  the  gift  of  115  head  of  cattle,  and  as  many  sheep 
to  begin  a  ranch  at  Caborca.  In  1700  when  San 
Xavier  was  founded,  Kino  rounded  up  1400  head  of 
cattle  on  the  ranch  of  his  own  mission  at  Dolores, 
and  dividing  them  into  droves,  sent  one  of  them  under 
his  Indian  overseer  to  San  Xavier.  In  the  same  year 
he  took  700  cattle  from  his  own  ranch,  and  sent  them 
to  Salvatierra,  across  the  Gulf  at  Loreto  —  a  trans- 
action which  was  several  times  repeated." 

Kino  had  often  spoken  to  Salvatierra  about  the 
failure  of  the  attempt  to  evangelize  Lower  California, 
to  which  his  heart  still  clung,  and  he  suggested  to  his 
companion  that  in  his  capacity  of  official  visitor  he 
might  make  another  effort  to  redeem  the  unfortunate 
people  who  lived  there.  It  was  true,  he  admitted,  that 
the  country  was  so  barren  that  it  could  not  be  self- 
sustaining,  but  he  was  convinced  that  it  would  be  an 
easy  matter  to  convey  provisions  from  fertile  Pimeria 
to  the  starving  Californians  if  a  ship  could  be  con- 
structed to  transport-  to  the  other  side  of  the  Gulf 
whatever  the  future  missionaries  and  people  might 
need.  Salvatierra  took  fire  at  the  idea,  and,  before 
they  parted,  ordered  Kino  to  build  the  barque  at  any 
point  he  might  select  along  the  west  coast  of  Mexico 
and  assured  him  that  he  himself  would  further  the 
project  with  all  the  power  at  his  disposal. 

It  was  not  until  1694  that  Kino  attempted  to  build 
the  ship.  He  was  then  among  the  Sobas  on  the  Gulf, 
and  with  him  were  Father  Campo  and  Captain  Manje, 

21 


322  The  Jesuits 

the  latter  of  whom  has  left  a  diary  of  that  journey. 
He  began  to  cut  his  timber  on  March  16,  1694,  but  he 
was  informed  that  Lower  California  was  not  an  island, 
but  a  peninsula,  and  he  then  inaugurated  a  series 
of  amazing  overland  journeys  to  reach  the  head  of 
the  Gulf.  His  companion  Captain  Manje  had  told 
him  of  the  wonderful  structures  on  the  Gila  River 
and  thither  he  directed  his  steps.  He  is  said  to  have 
celebrated  Mass  in  the  largest  of  those  ruined  buildings, 
the  famous  Casa  Grande.  It  was  quadrilateral  in 
form  and  four  stories  high.  The  rafters  were  of  cedar 
and  the  walls  of  solid  cement  and  masonry.  It  was 
divided  into  various  compartments,  some  of  them 
spacious  enough  for  a  considerable  assembly.  The 
tradition  among  the  people  was  that  Montezuma's 
predecessors  built  it  on  the  way  from  the  north  to  the 
southern  countries  where  they  ultimately  settled. 

At  a  distance  of  three  leagues  from  this  Casa  and 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river  are  the  ruins  of  another 
edifice,  which  appears  to  have  been  still  more  sumptu- 
ous. Indeed  the  ruins  at  that  place  would  indicate 
that  at  one  time  there  had  been  not  merely  a  palace 
but  a  whole  city,  and  the  natives  assured  the  mission- 
aries that  there  were  other  buildings  further  north 
which  were  marvelous  for  their  symmetry  and  arrange- 
ments. Among  them  was  a  labyrinth  which  appears 
to  have  been  a  pleasure  house  of  some  great  king. 
Excavators  have  discovered  in  various  places,  some- 
times leagues  away  from  these  great  buildings,  shapely 
and  variously  colored  slabs,  and  two  leagues  from  the 
Casa  Grande  there  was  found  the  basin  of  a  reservoir 
large  enough  to  supply  a  populous  city  and  to  irrigate 
the  fertile  plains  around  for  great  distances;  while  to 
the  west  was  a  lagoon  which  was  emptied  by  a  narrow 
sluice.  The  regularity  of  the  circular  form  of  this 
lagoon  and  its  rather  contracted  dimensions  would 


The  Two  Americas  323 

suggest  that  it  was  the  work  of  men  were  it  not  for 
its  extraordinary  depth.  Holes  had  been  cut  into 
the  solid  rock  which  subsequently  were  found  large 
enough  to  be  used  as  storehouses  for  provisions  for 
troops. 

These  ruins,  however,  do  not  appear  to  have 
interested  Kino  to  any  great  extent.  There  were  other 
ruins  that  worried  him  about  that  time.  His  own 
missions  seemed  to  be  facing  universal  destruction. 
He  himself  was  being  denounced  in  Mexico  as  conveying 
false  information  to  the  government  about  his  Indians; 
they  were  accused  of  being  in  secret  alliance  with  the 
Apaches,  who  were  destroying  the  country  and  defying 
the  Spaniards.  Kino  again  and  again  had  denied  the 
truth  of  these  charges,  but  he  was  not  only  not  believed 
but  was  held  up  as  a  deliberate  liar. 

On  March  29,  1695,  the  Pimas  of  Tubutama  burned 
the  priest's  house  and  church,  profaned  the  sacred 
vessels  and  then,  starting  down  the  river  to  Caborca, 
had,  after  murdering  Father  Saeta  and  desecrating 
the  church,  killed  four  servants  of  the  mission.  An 
armed  force  was  quickly  sent  after  them  and  succeeded 
in  killing  a  certain  number  in  the  battle  that  ensued. 
Fifty  of  them  then  gave  themselves  up  on  a  promise 
of  immunity,  but  on  arriving  in  camp  they  were  brutally 
murdered.  The  troops  then  hastened  to  Cocospera, 
fancying  that  they  had  restored  peace,  but  they  were 
no  sooner  out  of  sight  than  the  Pimas  laid  waste  the 
whole  Tubutama  Valley  and  destroyed  every  town  on 
the  San  Ignacio  River.  Where  was  Kino  all  this  time  ? 
Quietly  waiting  to  be  killed  at  Dolores.  He  had 
concealed  the  sacred  vessels  in  a  cave  and  was  kneeling 
in  prayer,  expecting  the  tomahawk  or  a  poisoned 
arrow.  But  no  one  came.  He  was  too  much  beloved 
by  all  the  Indians  to  be  injured  in  the  least,  even  in 
their  wildest  excess  of  furv. 


324  The  Jesuits 

Of  course  the  Spaniards  ultimately  won.  They 
ravaged  the  whole  country  and  slaughtered  the  savages 
until  the  entire  tribe  was  terror-stricken  and  forced 
by  hunger  or  fear  of  annihilation  to  sue  for  peace. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  missionaries,  a  general 
pardon  was  granted,  and  then  the  work  of  reconciling 
the  red  men  to  the  terrible  whites  had  to  be  begun  all 
over  again.  When  Kino  returned  to  Dolores,  he  was 
received  with  the  utmost  enthusiasm  by  his  people. 
Not  only  the  Pimas,  but  the  Sobas  and  Sobaipuris 
came  out  to  welcome  him.  They  loaded  him  with 
gifts  and  made  all  sorts  of  promises  of  future  good 
behavior,  and  he  then  set  himself  to  the  task  of  re- 
building the  devastated  rancherias.  Notwithstanding 
this  return,  however,  to  normal  conditions  and  the  great 
increase  of  his  influence  over  the  Indians,  Kino  still 
longed  to  devote  himself  to  the  regeneration  of  the 
degraded  Californians,  and  he  asked  to  be  associated 
with  Salvatierra,  who  had  gone  thither  in  1697,  but 
owing  to  the  protest  of  the  Pimas,  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment positively  refused  to  permit  him  to  leave  the 
district  where  his  presence  was  so  essential  for  peace. 

After  endless  journeys  up  and  down  the  country, 
providing  for  the  material  and  spiritual  wants  of  his 
own  flock,  but  ever  keeping  in  his  mind  the  great 
project  of  reaching  Lower  California  by  land,  Kino 
at  last  climbed  the  mountain  of  Santa  Brigida  and 
saw  quite  near  to  him  the  Gulf  of  California  with  a 
port  or  bay  which,  because  it  was  in  latitude  about 
31°  36'  must  have  been  what  the  old  cosmographers 
called  the  Santa  Clara  range.  "  From  its  summit,"  says 
Kino  himself,  "  I  clearly  descried  the  beach  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Colorado,  but  as  there  was  a  fog  on  the  sea  I  could 
not  make  out  the  California  coast."  On  another 
occasion,  however,  namely  in  1694,  he  and  Juan  Mates 
had  seen  the  other  side  from  Mt.  Nazarene  de  Caborca, 


The  Two  Americas  325 

lower  down  the  coast.  A  point  of  identification  left 
by  Kino  was  that  the  mountain  on  which  he  stood  in 
1698,  had  been  once  a  volcano.  The  marks  of  it  were 
all  around  him. 

Kino  could  not  then  pursue  his  exploration  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  His  guides  and  companions  refused 
to  go  any  farther,  so  he  had  to  turn  homeward.  On 
the  way  back,  however,  he  was  consoled  by  discovering 
more  than  "  4,000  souls,"  to  use  Alegre's  expression, 
"  in  rancherias  which  were  until  then  unknown  to 
him.  He  baptized  about  four  hundred  babies  and  sent 
little  presents  to  his  Indian  friends  along  the  Colorado 
and  Gila,"  or,  as  Kino  spells  it,  Hila.  After  making 
arrangements  for  future  explorations  he  set  out  for 
Dolores,  which  he  reached  on  October  18  after  a 
journey  of  three  hundred  leagues.  In  1699  he  was 
joined  by  his  friend  Captain  Manje,  and  they  resolved 
to  reach  the  Colorado  itself  and  go  down  the  stream 
to  the  mouth.  But  they  failed  to  find  guides,  for  it 
was  an  unfriendly  country,  and  so  the  disappointed 
men  again  returned  to  Dolores.  Kino  was  seriously 
ill  on  his  arrival,  but  was  on  his  feet  again  in  October 
when  the  visitor,  Father  Leal,  wanted  to  inspect  the 
country.  The  official  got  no  farther  than  Bac,  while 
Kino  and  Manje  started  west,  but  they  did  not  succeed 
in  going  far,  and  were  at  the  mission  again  in  November. 

On  September  24,  1700,  Kino  attempted  a  new 
route.  Striking  the  Gila  east  of  the  bend,  he  followed 
its  course  down  to  the  Yuma  country.  After  settling 
a  quarrel  between  the  Yumas  and  their  neighbors, 
he  climbed  a  high  hill  to  explore,  but  saw  only  land. 
He  then  crossed  to  the  north  bank  of  the  Gila  with 
some  Yumas  and  journeyed  on  to  their  principal  ran- 
cheria,  which  he  called,  San  Dionisio,  because  he 
arrived  there  on  the  feast  of  that  saint,  October  9. 
There  he  ascended  another  mountain  and  this  time 


326  The  Jesuits 

he  was  rewarded.  The  sun  was  setting  as  he  reached 
the  summit,  but  he  clearly  saw  the  river  running  ten 
leagues  west  of  San  Dionisio  and,  after  a  course  of 
twenty  leagues  south,  emptying  into  the  Gulf.  From 
another  hill  to  the  south  he  saw  before  his  eyes  the 
sandy  stretches  of  Lower  California.  The  wonderful 
old  man,  however,  was  not  yet  satisfied.  He  would 
make  one  more  attempt  and  with  Father  Gonzales, 
a  new  arrival  in  the  missions,  he  set  his  face  to  the  west, 
reaching  San  Dionisio  by  the  way  of  Sonoito  and 
from  there  went  down  to  Santa  Isabel.  "  From  this 
point,"  says  Bancroft  (XV,  p.  500),  "  they  were  in 
new  territory.  Going  down  the  river  they  reached 
tide-water  on  March  5,  1702,  and  on  the  7th,  the  very 
mouth  of  the  river.  Nothing  but  land  could  be  seen 
on  the  south,  west  and  north.  Surely,  they  thought 
there  can  be  no  estrecho,  and  California  is  a  part  of 
America." 

According  to  Clavigero  these  journeys  totalled  about 
twenty  thousand  miles.  It  is  almost  incredible,  but 
Bolton  tells  us  that  "  Kino's  endurance  in  the  saddle 
was  worthy  of  a  seasoned  cowboy."  Thus  when  he 
went  to  the  City  of  Mexico  in  1695,  he  travelled  on 
that  single  journey  no  less  than  1500  miles;  and  he 
accomplished  it  in  fifty-three  days.  Two  years  later, 
when  he  reached  the  Gila  on  the  north,  he  did  seven 
or  eight  hundred  miles  in  thirty  days.  In  1699,  on 
his  trip  to  and  from  the  Gila  he  made  seven  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  in  thirty  nine  days;  in  1700,  a  thou- 
sand miles  in  twenty-six  days;  and  in  1701,  eleven 
hundred  miles  in  thirty-five  days.  He  was  then 
nearly  sixty  years  of  age. 

Meantime,  Salvatierra  had  been  painfully  establish- 
ing missions  all  along  the  barren  peninsula,  but  was  so 
woefully  discouraged  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  return- 
ing to  Mexico.  At  this  juncture  Father  Juan  Ugarte 


The  Two  Americas  327 

arrived  on  the  scene.  He  had  been  Salvatierra's 
agent  in  Mexico  for  collecting  funds,  but  when  he 
heard  of  the  threatening  condition  of  things  in  California 
he  had  himself  relieved  of  his  rectorship  in  San  Gregorio 
and  became  a  missionary.  It  was  really  he  who  saved 
the  whole  enterprise  from  destruction.  He  was  born 
in  Honduras  about  the  year  1660,  and  entered  the 
Society  at  Tapozotclan.  As  soon  as  he  set  foot  on  the 
Peninsula,  he  began  a  reorganization  of  the  whole 
economic  system  of  the  missions.  With  St.  Paul, 
he  believed  that  a  man  who  did  not  work  should  not 
eat,  and  consequently  that  Salvatierra's  benignant 
method  of  feeding  every  savage  who  would  come  to 
the  "  doctrina,"  or  catechism,  was  psychologically, 
religiously  and  economically  wrong.  Hence,  when  he 
found  himself  fixed  at  San  Javier,  he  taught  the 
natives  how  to  cultivate  the  land,  to  dig  ditches  for 
irrigation,  to  plant  trees,  to  trim  vines  and  to  raise 
live  stock. 

Of  course,  the  savages  were  surprised  at  the  new 
system,  but  although  Ugarte  was  very  kind,  he  was 
very  positive  and  his  bodily  strength  astounded  and 
appalled  his  neophytes.  The  result  was  that  while 
other  missions  were  starving,  San  Javier  had  fields  of 
corn,  rich  pastures  and  great  herds  of  cattle.  It 
took  a  long  time  to  make  this  system  acceptable 
everywhere  on  the  Peninsula;  when  it  was  adopted  it 
was  difficult  to  make  it  a  success  —  even  Ugarte's 
own  fields  were  devastated  and  his  cattle  stolen.  Indeed, 
conditions  grew  so  desperate  in  1701,  that  Salvatierra 
at  last  determined  to  abandon  California  and  go  back 
to  Mexico.  Ugarte  stood  out  against  it  and  protested 
that  he  would  never  give  up  until  his  superiors  called 
him  back.  To  show  that  he  meant  what  he  said,  he 
went  to  the  church  and  laid  a  vow  to  that  effect  on  the 
altar. 


328  The  Jesuits 

Just  when  the  sky  was  darkest,  information  came 
that  Philip  V  had  ordered  6000  pesos  a  year  to  be 
allotted  to  the  missions.  The  first  payment  however, 
was  made  with  extreme  reluctance  by  the  viceroy. 
But  the  royal  example  stimulated  the  piety  of  others, 
with  the  result  that  the  Marquis  of  Villapuente  gave 
an  estate  of  30,000  pesos  for  three  missions;  Ortega 
and  his  wife  came  forward  with  10,000;  and  ether 
friends  hastened  with  their  contributions.  In  1704 
Salvatierra  went  over  to  Mexico  to  collect  the  usual 
subsidy.  He  was  rejoiced  at  being  told  on  his  arrival 
that  not  only  would  he  receive  the  stipend,  but  that 
his  majesty  had  ordered  that  the  churches  should  be 
supplied  with  whatever  was  necessary  for  Divine 
services,  that  a  seminary  was  to  be  founded  in  Cali- 
fornia, that  a  presidial  force  of  thirty  men  was  to  be 
stationed  on  the  coast  to  protect  a  galleon,  a  sort  of 
mission  ship  for  provisions  and  exploration,  and 
that  7000  pesos  a  year  were  to  be  added  to  the  former 
allowance.  It  was  a  splendid  example  of  royal 
munificence;  however,  not  only  were  none  of  these 
royal  orders  carried  out,  but  even  the  original  grant  of 
6000  pesos  could  not  be  collected.  "  It  may  be  fairly 
stated,"  says  Bancroft  (XV,  432)  "  that  the  missions  of 
California  were  from  the  first  to  the  last  founded  and 
supported  by  private  persons  whose  combined  gifts 
formed  what  is  known  as  the  Pious  Fund." 

Salvatierra  was  absent  from  California  for  a  little 
over  two  years  while  filling  the  office  of  provincial, 
"  a  flattering  honor,"  says  Bancroft,  "  that  would  be 
gladly  accepted  by  most  Jesuits."  Before  the  end  of 
his  term,  however,  he  hastened  back  to  labor  in  the 
land  of  desolation  to  which  he  had  consecrated  his 
life.  He  lasted  only  a  short  time,  and  died  in  1717  in 
Guadalajara.  "  His  memory,"  says  Bancroft,  "  needs 
no  panegyric;  his  deeds  speak  for  themselves,  and  in 


The  Two  Americas  329 

the  light  of  these,  the  bitterest  enemies  of  his  religion  or 
of  his  Order  cannot  deny  the  beauty  of  his  character 
and  the  disinterestedness  of  his  devotion  to  California. 
The  whole  city  assembled  at  his  funeral  and  his  remains 
were  deposited  amidst  ceremonies  rarely  seen  at  the 
burial  of  a  Jesuit." 

Meantime,  Ugarte's  methods  were  being  followed 
elsewhere  than  in  San  Javier,  and  a  new  impetus  was 
given  to  them  when  he  succeeded  Salvatierra  as 
general  superior.  It  must  have  been  hard  to  keep 
the  pace  that  he  set;  thus,  for  instance,  he  used  40,000 
loads  to  make  a  road  from  San  Javier  to  one  of  the 
out-lying  missions;  he  built  a  reservoir  there  and 
carted  to  it  160,000  loads  of  earth  to  make  a  garden 
and  executed  many  similar  works.  He  was  also  very 
eager  to  carry  out  Salvatierra's  purpose  of  exploring 
the  coast,  but  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  antiquated 
ships  which  had  been  in  use  up  to  that  time  —  "  worn 
out  and  rotten  old  hulks,"  he  said,  "  only  fit  to  drown 
Jesuits  in."  He  determined  'to  have  a  ship  of  his 
own  built  in  California  and  after  his  own  ideas.  For 
that  purpose  he  hired  shipwrights  from  the  other, 
side  of  the  Gulf,  where  also  he  proposed  to  get  his 
timber.  But  hearing  of  some  large  trees  thirty  leagues 
above  Mulege  he  went  thither  in  1718  to  look  them 
over.  He  found  the  trees,  but  they  were  in  such 
inaccessible  ravines  that  the  shipbuilder  declared  it 
was  impossible  to  get  them. 

Ugarte  was  not  swayed  from  his  purpose  by  this 
difficulty;  he  went  down  to  Loretto  and  returned 
with  three  mechanics  and  all  the  Indians  he  could 
induce  to  follow  him.  After  four  months  of  hard  work 
he  not  only  had  all  the  trees  felled  and  shaped,  but 
he  had  opened  a  road  for  thirty  leagues  over  the 
mountains  and  with  oxen  and  mules  hauled  his  material 
to  the  coast.  He  built  his  "  Triumph  of  the  Cross," 


330  The  Jesuits 

as  he  called  it,  in  four  months.  The  provincial  was 
told  meanwhile,  that  it  was  going  to  be  used  for  pearl 
fishing,  and  sent  the  supposed  culprit  a  very  sharp 
letter  in  consequence.  No  doubt  he  made  amends  for 
this  when  he  was  disabused.  The  "  Triumph  of  the 
Cross  "  was  not  to  carry  a  cargo  of  pearls  but  was 
intended  to  explore  the  upper  Gulf,  so  as  to  realize 
the  dream  of  Kino  and  Salvatierra. 

The  good  ship  left  Loretto  on  May  15,  1721,  with 
twenty  men,  six  of  whom  were  Europeans,  the 
captain  being  a  William  Stafford.  It  was  followed  by 
the  "  Santa  Barbara,"  a  large  open  boat  carrying 
five  Californians,  two  Chinese  and  a  Yaqui.  They 
made  their  first  landing  at  Conception  Bay,  and  then, 
after  creeping  along  the  shore  northward,  crossed  the 
Gulf  to  Santa  Sabina  and  San  Juan  Bautista  on  the 
Seri  coast.  The  sight  of  the  cross  on  the  bow-sprit 
delighted  the  natives  and  assured  the  travellers  of  a 
hearty  welcome.  Tiburon  was  the  next  stop,  and 
while  there  Ugarte  felt  his  strength  giving  out ;  but 
despite  his  sixty-one  years  he  continued  his  voyage,  and 
headed  the  "  Triumph  "for  the  mouth  of  the  Colorado, 
while  the  "Santa  Barbara"  hugged  the  shore.  Mean- 
time, a  few  men  were  landed  and  made  for  the  nearest 
mission.  They  found  the  trail  to  Caborca  and  soon 
the  Jesuits  of  that  place  and  of  San  Ignacio  hurried 
down  with  provisions  for  the  travellers. 

While  the  "Santa  Barbara"  was  being  loaded,  the 
"  Triumph  "  was  nearly  stranded  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river,  so  it  was  decided  to  cross  to  the  other  side,  which 
they  reached  only  after  a  hard  three  days'  sail.  There 
the  "  Santa  Barbara"  met  them  and  both  ships  pointed 
north,  crossing  and  recrossing  the  gulf  until  finally 
they  anchored  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  on  the  Pimeria 
side.  There  was  some  talk  of  going  up  the  stream, 
but  the  ship's  position  in  the  strong  current  was  danger- 


The  Two  Americas  331 

ous,  the  weather  was  threatening,  and  besides,  Ugarte 
had  achieved  his  purpose;  he  had  seen  the  river  from 
the  Gulf  and  had  added  a  convincing  proof  to  Kino's 
assertion  that  California  was  a  peninsula.  On  July 
1 6  they  started  south;  the  storm  they  had;  feared 
broke  over  them  and  the  sloop  nearly  went  to  the 
bottom.  The  sailors,  who  were  nearly  all  sick  of  the 
scurvy,  got  confused  in  the  Salsipuedes  channel,  and 
it  was  only  on  August  18  that  they  cleared  that  passage 
so  aptly  called  "Get  out  if  you  can."  But  a  triple 
rainbow  in  the  sky  that  day  comforted  them,  just  as 
they  had  been  cheered  when  the  St.  Elmo's  fire  played 
around  the  mast  head  during  the  gale.  But  they  were 
not  free  yet.  Another  storm  overtook  them  and  they 
had  great  difficulty  in  dodging  a  waterspout,  but  they 
finally  reached  Loretto  in  the  month  of  September. 

Besides  its  orginal  purpose,  this  voyage  resulted  in 
furnishing  much  valuable  information  about  the  shores, 
ports,  islands  and  currents  of  the  Upper  Gulf.  The 
original  account  of  the  journey  with  maps  and  a 
journal  kept  by  Stafford  was  sent  to  the  viceroy  for 
the  king,  but  Bancroft  says  they  have  not  been  traced. 
Ugarte  lived  only  eight  years  after  this  eventful 
journey.  Picolo,  Salvatierra's  first  companion  had 
preceded  him  to  the  grave,  dying  on  February  22, 
1729,  at  the  age  of  79,  whereas  Ugarte' s  life-work 
did  not  cease  till  the  following  December  29.  Perhaps 
Lower  California  owes  more  to  him  than  to  the  great 
Salvatierra. 

A  classic  example  of  the  influence  of  ignorance  in 
the  creation  of  many  of  the  false  statements  of  history 
is  furnished  by  a  publication  about  these  missions  in 
the  "  Montreal  Gazette  "  of  1847,  under  the  title  of 
"  Memories  of  Mgr.  Blanchet."  "  The  failure  of  the 
Jesuits  in  Lower  California,"  he  says,"  must  be  attrib- 
uted to  their  unwillingness  to  establish  a  hierarchy 


332  The  Jesuits 

in  that  country.  Had  they  been  so  disposed,  they 
might  have  had  a  metropolitan  and  several  suffragans 
on  the  Peninsula.  They  failed  to  do  so,  until  at  last, 
in  1767,  word  came  from  generous  Spain  to  hand  over 
their  work  to  some  one  else."  In  the  first  place, 
"  generous  Spain  "  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to 
establish  a  hierarchy  on  that  barren  neck  of  land 
when  it  expelled  the  Jesuits  in  1767.  Again  as  "  gener- 
ous Spain "  appointed  even  the  sacristans  in  its 
remotest  colonies,  the  Society  must  be  acquitted  of  all 
blame  in  not  giving  an  entire  hierarchy  to  Lower 
California.  Finally,  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  last  Jesuits  left  both  Mexico 
and  Lower  California  and  there  is  nothing  there  yet, 
but  the  little  Vicariate  Apostolic  of  La  Paz  down  at 
the  lower  end  of  the  Peninsula. 

In  describing  the  work  of  the  Jesuits  in  Mexico, 
Bancroft  (XI,  436)  writes  as  follows:  "Without 
discussing  the  merits  of  the  charges  preferred  against 
them,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  service  of  God  in 
their  churches  was  reverent  and  dignified.  They 
spread  education  among  all  classes,  their  libraries 
were  open  to  all,  and  they  incessantly  taught  the 
natives  religion  in  its  true  spirit,  as  well  as  the  mode 
of  earning  an  honest  living.  Among  the  most  notable 
in  the  support  of  this  last  assertion  are  those  of  Nayarit, 
Sonora,  Sinaloa,  Chihuahua  and  lower  California, 
where  their  efforts  in  the  conversion  of  the  natives 
were  marked  by  perserverance  and  disinterestedness, 
united  with  love  for  humanity  and  prayer.  Had  the 
Jesuits  been  left  alone,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  Span- 
ish-American province  would  have  revolted  so  soon,  for 
they  were  devoted  servants  of  the  crown  and  had  great 
influence  with  all  classes  —  too  great  to  suit  royalty, 
but  such  as  after  all  might  have  saved  royalty  in  these 
parts."  Indeed,  when  the  Society  was  re-established 


The  Two  Americas  333 

in  1814,  Spain  had  already  lost  nearly  all  of  its  Amer- 
ican colonies.  The  punishment  had  rapidly  followed 
the  crime. 

Although  Mexico  and  the  Philippines  are  geograph- 
ically far  apart,  yet  ecclesiastically  one  depended  on 
the  other.  Legaspi,  who  took  possession  of  the  islands 
in  1571,  built  his  fleet  in  Mexico,  and  also  drafted  his 
sailors  there.  Andres  de  Urdaneta,  the  first  apostle 
of  the  Philippines,  was  an  Augustinian  friar  in  Mexico 
who  accompanied  Legaspi  as  his  chaplain.  Twenty 
years  after  that  expedition,  the  Jesuits  built  their 
first  house  in  Manila,  and  Father  Sanchez,  who  was, 
as  we  have  said,  one  of  the  supervisors  of  the  great 
tunnel,  was  sent  as  superior  from  Mexico  to  Manila. 
One  of  his  companions,  Sedeno,  had  been  a  missionary 
in  Florida,  and  it  was  he  who  opened  the  first  school 
in  the  Philippines  and  founded  colleges  at  Manila  and 
Cebu.  He  taught  the  Filipinos  to  cut  stone  and  mix 
mortar,  to  weave  cloth  and  make  garments.  He 
brought  artists  from  China  to  teach  them  to  draw 
and  paint,  and  he  erected  the  first  stone  building  in 
the  Philippines,  namely  the  cathedral,  dedicated  in 
honor  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin.  His  religious  superior,  Father  Sanchez  had 
meanwhile  acquired  such  influence  in  Manila  as  to  be 
chosen  in  1585,  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  all  the  colonists, 
to  go  to  arrange  the  affairs  of  the  colony  with  Philip  II 
and  the  Pope.  He  brought  with  him  to  Europe  a  Fili- 
pino boy  who,  on  his  return  to  his  native  land,  entered 
the  Society,  and  became  thus  the  first  Filipino  Jesuit. 

The  college  and  seminary  of  San  Jose  was  established 
in  Manila  in  1595.  It  still  exists,  though  it  is  no  longer 
in  the  hands  of  the  Society;  being  the  oldest  of  the 
colleges  of  the  Archipelago,  it  was  given  by  royal 
decree  precedence  over  all  other  educational  institu- 
tions. During  the  first  hundred  years  of  its  educational 


334  The  Jesuits 

life,  it  counted  among  its  alumni,  eight  bishops  and 
thirty-nine  Jesuits,  of  whom  four  became  provincials. 
There  were  also  on  the  benches  eleven  future  Augustin- 
ians,  eighteen  Franciscans,  three  Dominicans,  and 
thirty-nine  of  the  secular  clergy.  The  University  of 
St.  Ignatius,  which  opened  its  first  classes  in  1587, 
was  confirmed  as  a  pontifical  university  in  1621  and 
as  a  royal  university  in  1653.  Besides  these  institu- 
tions, the  Society  had  a  residence  at  Mecato  and  a 
college  at  Cavite,  and  also  the  famous  sanctuary  of 
Antipole.  They  likewise  established  the  parishes  of 
Santa  Cruz  and  San  Miguel  in  Manila. 

France  began  its  colonization  in  North  America  by 
the  settlement  of  Acadia  in  1603.  De  Monts,  who 
was  in  charge  of  it,  was  a  Huguenot  and,  strange  to 
say,  had  been  commissioned  to  advance  the  interests  of 
Catholicity  in  the  colony.  Half  of  the  settlers  were 
Calvinists,  and  the  other  half  Catholics  more  or  less 
infected  with  heresy.  A  priest  named  Josue  Flesche 
was  assigned  to  them;  he  baptized  the  Indians  indis- 
criminately, letting  them  remain  as  fervent  polygamists 
as  they  were  before.  The  two  Jesuit  missionaries, 
Pierre  Biard  and  Enemond  Masse,  who  were  finally 
forced  on  the  colonists,  had  to  withdraw,  and  they  then 
betook  themselves,  in  1613,  to  what  is  now  known  as 
Mount  Desert,  in  the  state  of  Maine,  but  that  settle- 
ment was  almost  immediately  destroyed  by  an  English 
pirate  from  Virginia.  Two  of  the  Jesuits  were  sentenced 
to  be  hanged  in  the  English  colony  there,  but  thanks  to 
a  storm  which  drove  them  across  the  Atlantic,  they 
were  able,  after  a  series  of  romantic  adventures,  to  reach 
France,  where  they  were  accused  of  having  prompted 
the  English  to  destroy  the  French  settlement  of  Acadia. 

Meantime,  Champlain,  who  had  established  himself 
at  Quebec  in  1608,  brought  over  some  Recollect 
Friars  in  1615.  It  was  not  until  1625  that  Father 


The  Two  Americas  335 

Masse,  who  had  been  in  Acadia,  came  to  Canada  proper 
with  Fathers  de  Brebeuf,  Charles  Lalemant,  and  two 
lay-brothers.  With  the  exception  of  Brebeuf,  they 
all  remained  in  Quebec,  while  he  with  the  Recollect 
La  Roche  d'Aillon  went  to  the  Huron  country,  in  the 
region  bordering  on  what  is  now  Georgian  Bay,  north 
of  the  present  city  of  Toronto.  The  Recollect  re- 
turned home  after  a  short  stay,  and  Brebeuf  remained 
there  alone  until  the  fall  of  Quebec  in  1629.  As  the 
English  were  now  in  possession,  all  hope  of  pursuing 
their  missionary  work  was  abandoned,  and  the  priests 
and  brother  returned  to  France.  Canada,  however, 
was  restored  to  its  original  owners  in  1632,  and  Le 
Jeune  and  Daniel,  soon  to  be  followed  by  Brebeuf 
and  many  others,  made  their  way  to  the  Huron  country 
to  evangelize  the  savages.  The  Hurons  were  chosen 
because  they  lived  in  villages  and  could  be  more 
easily  evangelized,  whereas  the  nomad  Algonquins 
would  be  almost  hopeless  for  the  time  being. 

The  Huron  missions  lasted  for  sixteen  years.  In 
1649  the  tribe  was  completely  annihilated  by  their 
implacable  foes,  the  Iroquois,  a  disaster  which  would 
have  inevitably  occurred,  even  if  no  missionary  had 
ever  visited  them.  The  coming  of  the  Jesuits  at  that 
particular  time  seemed  to  be  for  nothing  else  than  to 
assist  at  the  death  agonies  of  the  tribe.  The  terrible 
sufferings  of  those  early  missionaries  have  often  been 
told  by  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic  writers.  At 
one  time,  when  expecting  a  general  massacre,  they  sat 
in  their  cabin  at  night  and  wrote  a  farewell  letter  to 
their  brethren;  but,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the 
savages  changed  their  minds,  and  the  work  of  evangel- 
ization continued  for  a  little  space.  Meantime,  Br6beuf 
and  Chaumonot  had  gone  down  as  far  as  Lake  Erie  in 
mid-winter  and,  travelling  all  the  distance  from  Niagara 
Falls  to  the  Detroit  River,  had  mapped  out  sites  for 


336  The  Jesuits 

future  missions.  Jogues  and  Raymbault,  setting  out 
in  the  other  direction,  had  gone  to  Lake  Superior  to 
meet  some  thousands  of  Ojibways  who  had  assembled 
there  to  hear  about  "the  prayer." 

The  first  great  disaster  occurred  on  August  3,  1642. 
Jogues  was  captured  near  Three  Rivers,  when  on  his 
way  up  from  Quebec  with  supplies  for  the  starving 
missionaries.  He  was  horribly  mutilated,  and  carried 
down  to  the  Iroquois  country,  where  he  remained  a 
prisoner  for  thirteen  months,  undergoing  at  every 
moment  the  most  terrible  spiritual  and  bodily  suffering. 
His  companion,  Goupil  was  murdered,  but  Jogues 
finally  made  his  escape  by  the  help  of  the  Dutch  at 
Albany,  and  on  reaching  New  York  was  sent  across 
the  ocean  in  mid-winter,  and  finally  made  his  way  to 
France.  He  returned,  however,  to  Canada,  and  in 
1644  was  sent  back  as  a  commissioner  of  peace  to  his 
old  place  of  captivity.  It  was  on  this  journey  that  he 
gave  the  name  of  Lake  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  to 
what  is  called  Lake  George.  In  1646  he  returned  again 
to  the  same  place  as  a  missionary,  but  he  and  his  com- 
panion Lalande  were  slain;  the  reason  of  the  murder 
being  that  Jogues  was  a  manitou  who  brought  dis- 
aster on  the  Mohawks.  Two  other  Jesuits,  Bressani 
and  Poncet,  were  cruelly  tortured  at  the  very  place 
where  Jogues  had  been  slain,  but  were  released. 

In  1649  the  Iroquois  came  in  great  numbers  to 
Georgian  Bay  to  make  an  end  of  the  Hurons.  Daniel, 
Gamier  and  Chabanel  were  slain,  and  Br6beuf  and 
Lalemant  were  led  to  the  stake  and  slowly  burned  to 
death.  During  the  torture,  the  Indians  cut  slices  of 
flesh  from  the  bodies  of  their  victims,  poured  scalding 
water  on  their  heads  in  mockery  of  baptism,  cut  the 
sign  of  the  cross  on  their  flesh,  thrust  red-hot  rods  into 
their  throats,  placed  live  coals  in  their  eyes,  tore  out 
their  hearts,  and  ate  them,  and  then  danced  in  glee 


The  Two  Americas  337 

around  the  charred  remains.  This  double  tragedy  of 
Br6beuf  and  Lalemant  occurred  on  the  i6th  and  17th 
of  March,  1649.  After  that  the  Hurons  were  scattered 
everywhere  through  the  country,  and  disappeared 
from  history  as  a  distinct  tribe. 

As  early  as  1650  there  was  question  of  a  bishop  for 
Quebec.  The  queen  regent,  Anne  of  Austria,  the 
council  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  the  Company  of 
New  France  all  wrote  to  the  Vicar-General  of  the 
Society  asking  for  the  appointment  of  a  Jesuit.  The 
three  Fathers  most  in  evidence  were  Ragueneau, 
Charles  Lalemant  and  Le  Jeune.  All  three  had 
refused  the  honor  and  Father  Nickel  wrote  to  the 
petitioners  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  rules  of  the 
Order  to  accept  such  ecclesiastical  dignities.  The 
hackneyed  accusation  of  the  supposed  Jesuit  opposition 
to  the  establishment  of  an  episcopacy  was  to  the  fore 
even  then  in  America.  The  refutation  is  handled  in  a 
masterly  fashion  by  Rochemonteix  (Les  Jesuites  et 
la  Nouvelle  France,  I,  191).  Incidentally  the  pre- 
vailing suspicion  that  Jesuits  are  continually  extolling 
each  other  will  be  dispelled  by  reading  the  author's 
text  and  notes  upon  the  characteristics  of  the  three 
nominees  which  unfitted  them  for  the  post.  "Le  Jeune, ' ' 
he  says,  "would  be  unfit  because  he  was  a  converted 
Protestant  who  had  never  rid  himself  of  the  defects  of 
his  early  education."  It  was  not  until  1658  that 
Laval  was  named. 

Meantime  in  1654,  through  the  efforts  of  Father 
Le  Moyne  to  whom  a  monument  has  been  erected  in 
the  city  of  Syracuse,  a  line  of  missions  was  established 
in  the  very  country  of  the  Iroquois.  It  extended  all 
along  the  Mohawk  from  the  Hudson  to  Lake  Erie. 
Many  of  the  Iroquois  were  converted  such  as  Gara- 
gontia,  Hot  Ashes  and  others,  the  most  notable  of 
whom  was  the  Indian  girl,  Tegakwitha,  who  fled  from 

22 


338  The  Jesuits 

the  Mohawk  to  Caughnawaga,  a  settlement  on  the 
St.  Lawrence  opposite  Lachine  which  the  Fathers  had 
established  for  the  Iroquois  converts.  The  record  of 
her  life  gives  evidence  that  she  was  the  recipient  of 
wonderful  supernatural  graces.  These  New  York 
missions  were  finally  ruined  by  the  stupidity  and 
treachery  of  two  governors  of  Quebec,  de  la  Barre 
and  de  Denonville,  and  also  by  the  Protestant  English 
who  disputed  the  ownership  of  that  territory  with  the 
French.  By  the  year  1710  there  were  no  longer  any 
missionaries  in  New  York,  except  an  occasional  one 
who  stole  in,  disguised  as  an  Indian,  to  visit  his  scattered 
flock.  There  were  three  Jesuits  with  Dongan,  the 
English  governor  of  New  York  during  his  short  tenure 
of  office,  but  they  never  left  Manhattan  Island  in 
search  of  the  Indians. 

Attention  was  then  turned  to  the  Algonquins,  and 
there  are  wonderful  records  of  heroic  missionary  en- 
deavor all  along  the  St.  Lawrence  from  the  Gulf  to  Mon- 
treal, and  up  into  the  regions  of  the  North.  Albanel 
reached  Hudson  Bay,  and  Buteux  was  murdered  at  the 
head-waters  of  the  St.  Maurice  above  Three  Rivers. 
The  Ottawas  in  the  West  were  also  looked  after,  and 
Garreau  was  shot  to  death  back  of  Montreal  on  his 
way  to  their  country,  which  lay  along  the  Ottawa  and 
around  Mackinac  Island  and  in  the  region  of  Green 
Bay.  The  heroic  old  Menard  perished  in  the  distant 
swamps  of  Wisconsin;  Allouez  and  Dablon  travelled 
everywhere  along  the  shores  of  Lake  Superior;  a  great 
mission  station  was  established  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie, 
and  Marquette  with  his  companion  Joliet  went  down 
the  Mississippi  to  the  Arkansas,  and  assured  the 
world  that  the  Great  River  emptied  its  waters  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  A  statue  in  the  Capitol  of  Wash- 
ington commemorates  this  achievement  and  has  been 
duplicated  elsewhere. 


The  Two  Americas  339 

The  beatification  of  Jogues,  Br6beuf,  Lalemant, 
Daniel,  Gamier,  Chabanel  and  the  two  donnts,  Goupil 
and  Lalande,  is  now  under  consideration  at  Rome. 
Their  heroic  lives  as  well  as  those  of  their  -associates 
have  given  rise  to  an  extensive  literature,  even  among 
Protestant  writers,  but  the  most  elaborate  tribute  to 
them  is  furnished  by  the  monumental  work  consisting 
of  the  letters  sent  by  these  apostles  of  the  Faith  to 
their  superior  at  Quebec  and  known  the  world  over 
as  "  The  Jesuit  Relations."  It  comprises  seventy- 
three  octavo  volumes,  the  publication  of  which  was 
undertaken  by  a  Protestant  company  in  Cleveland. 
(See  Campbell,  Pioneer  Priests  of  North  America.) 

On  March  25,  1634,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  White  and 
Altham  landed  with  Leonard  Calvert,  the  brother  of 
Lord  Baltimore,  on  St.  Clement's  Island  in  Maryland. 
With  them  were  twenty  "  gentlemen  adventurers,"  all 
of  whom,  with  possibly  one  exception,  were  Catholics. 
They  brought  with  them  two  hundred  and  fifty 
mechanics,  artisans  and  laborers  who  were  in  great 
part  Protestants.  It  took  them  four  months  to 
come  from  Southampton  and,  on  the  way  over,  all 
religious  discussions  were  prohibited.  They  were 
kindly  received  by  the  Indians,  and  the  wigwam  of 
the  chief  was  assigned  to  the  priests.  A  catechism 
in  Patuxent  was  immediately  begun  by  Father  White, 
and  many  of  the  tribe  were  converted  to  the  Faith 
in  course  of  time,  as  were  a  number  of  the  Protestant 
colonists.  Beyond  that,  very  little  missionary  work 
was  accomplished,  as  all  efforts  in  that  direction  were 
nullified  by  a  certain  Lewger,  a  former  Protestant 
minister  who  was  Calvert's  chief  adviser.  The  ad- 
joining colony  of  Virginia,  which  was  intensely  bitter 
in  its  Protestantism,  immediately  began  to  cause 
trouble.  In  1644  Ingle  and  Claiborne  made  a  descent 
on  the  colony  in  a  vessel,  appropriately  called  the 


340  The  Jesuits 

"  Reformation."  They  captured  and  burned  St. 
Mary's,  plundered  and  destroyed  the  houses  and 
chapels  of  the  missionaries,  and  sent  Father  White 
in  chains  to  England,  where  he  was  to  be  put  to  death, 
on  the  charge  of  being  "  a  returned  priest."  As  he 
was  able  to  <show  that  he  had  "  returned  "  in  spite  of 
himself,  he  was  discharged. 

Calvert  recovered  his  possessions  later,  and  then 
dissensions  began  between  him  and  the  missionaries 
because  of  some  land  given  to  them  by  the  Indians. 
In  1645  it  was  estimated  that  the  colonists  numbered 
between  four  and  five  thousand,  three-fourths  of 
whom  were  Catholics.  They  were  cared  for  by  four 
Jesuits.  In  1649  the  famous  General  Toleration  Act 
was  passed,  ordaining  that  "  no  one  believing  in  Jesus 
Christ  should  be  molested  in  his  or  her  religion." 
As  the  reverse  of  this  obtained  in  Virginia,  at  that 
time,  a  number  of  Puritan  recalcitrants  from  that 
colony  availed  themselves  of  the  hospitality  of  Mary- 
land, and  almost  immediately,  namely  in  1650,  they 
repealed  the  Act  and  ordered  that  "  no  one  who  pro- 
fessed and  exercised  the  Papistic,  commonly  known 
as  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  could  be  protected  in 
the  Province."  Three  of  the  Jesuits  were,  in  con- 
sequence, compelled  to  flee  to  Virginia,  where  they 
kept  in  hiding  for  two  or  three  years.  In  1658  Lord 
Baltimore  was  again  in  control,  and  the  Toleration 
Act  was  re-enacted.  In  1671  the  population  had 
increased  to  20,000,  but  in  1676  there  was  another 
Protestant  uprising  and  the  English  penal  laws  were 
enforced  against  the  Catholic  population.  In  1715 
Charles,  Lord  Baltimore,  died.  Previous  to  that,  his 
son  Benedict  had  apostatized  and  was  disinherited. 
He  died  a  few  months  after  his  father.  Benedict's 
son  Charles,  who  was  also  a  turncoat,  was  named  lord 
proprietor  by  Queen  Ann,  and  made  the  situation  so 


The  Two  Americas  341 

intolerable  for  Catholics  that  they  were  seriously 
considering  the  advisability  of  abandoning  Maryland 
and  migrating  in  a  body  to  the  French  colony  of 
Louisiana.  As  a  matter  of  fact  many  went  West 
and  established  themselves  in  Kentucky. 

Of  the  Jesuits  and  their  flock  in  Maryland,  Bancroft 
writes :  "A  convention  of  the  associates  for  the  defence 
of  the  Protestant  religion  assumed  the  government, 
and  in  an  address  to  King  William  denounced  the 
influence  of  the  Jesuits,  the  prevalence  of  papist 
idolatry,  the  connivances  of  the  previous  government 
at  murders  of  Protestants  and  the  danger  from  plots 
with  the  French  and  Indians.  The  Roman  Catholics 
in  the  land  which  they  had  chosen  with  Catholic 
liberality,  not  as  their  own  asylum  only,  but  as  the 
asylum  of  every  persecuted  sect,  long  before  Locke  had 
pleaded  for  toleration,  or  Penn  for  religious  freedom, 
were  the  sole  victims  of  Protestant  intolerance.  Mass 
might  not  be  said  publicly.  No  Catholic  priest  or 
bishop  might  utter  his  faith  in  a  voice  of  persuasion. 
No  Catholic  might  teach  the  young.  If  the  wayward 
child  of  a  Catholic  would  become  an  apostate  the  law 
wrested  for  him  from  his  parents  a  share  of  their 
property.  The  disfranchisement  of  the  Proprietary 
related  to  his  creed,  not  to  his  family.  Such  were  the 
methods  adopted  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery. 
Who  shall  say  that  the  faith  of  the  cultivated  individual 
is  firmer  than  the  faith  of  the  common  people?  Who 
shall  say  that  the  many  are  fickle;  that  the  chief  is 
firm?  To  recover  the  inheritance  of  authority  Bene- 
dict, the  son  of  the  Proprietary,  renounced  the  Catholic 
Church  for  that  of  England,  but  the  persecution  never 
crushed  the  faith  of  the  humble  colonists." 

The  extent  of  the  Jesuit  missions  in  what  is  now 
Canada  and  the  United  States  may  be  appreciated  by 
a  glance  at  the  remarkable  map  recently  published 


342  The  Jesuits 

by  Frank  F.  Seaman  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.  On  it  is 
indicated  every  mission  site  beginning  with  the  Spanish 
posts  in  Florida,  Georgia  and  Virginia,  as  far  back  as 
1566.  The  missions  of  the  French  Fathers  are  more 
numerous,  and  extend  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to 
Hudson  Bay,  and  west  to  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Mississippi.  Not  only  are  the  mission  sites  indicated, 
but  the  habitats  of  the  various  tribes,  the  portages 
and  the  farthest  advances  of  the  tomahawk  are  there 
also.  Lines  starting  from  Quebec  show  the  source  of 
all  this  stupendous  labor. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CULTURE 

Colleges  —  Their  Popularity  —  Revenues  —  Character  of  education: 
Classics;  Science;  Philosophy;  Art  —  Distinguished  Pupils  —  Poets: 
Southwell;  Balde;  Sarbievius;  Strada;  Von  Spec;  Cresset;  Beschi. 
—  Orators:  Vieira;  Segneri;  Bourdaloue. —  Writers:  Isla;  Ribaden- 
eira;  Skarga;  Bouhours  etc. —  Historians  —  Publications  —  Scientists 
and  Explorers  —  Philosophers  —  Theologians  —  Saints. 

To  obviate  the  suspicion  of  any  desire  of  self-glori- 
fication in  the  account  of  what  the  Society  has  achieved 
in  several  fields  of  endeavor  especially  in  that  of 
science,  literature  and  education  it  will  be  safer  to 
quote  from  outside  and  especially  from  unfriendly4 
sources.  Fortunately  plenty  of  material  is  at  hand 
for  that  purpose.  Bohmer-Monod,  for  instance,  in 
"  Les  J6suites  "  are  surprisingly  generous  in  enumerating 
the  educational  establishments  possessed  by  the  Society 
at  one  time  all  over  Europe,  though  their  explanation 
of  the  phenomenon  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  In 
1540,  they  tell  us,  "  the  Order  counted  only  ten  regular 
members,  and  had  no  fixed  residence*  In  1556  it  had 
already  twelve  provinces,  79  houses,  and  about  1,000 
members.  In  1574  the  figures  went  up  to  seventeen 
provinces,  125  colleges,  n  novitiates,  35  other  estab- 
lishments of  various  kinds,  and  4,000  members.  In 
1608  there  were  tKirty-one  provinces,  306  colleges, 
40  novitiates,  21  professed  houses,  65  residences  and 
missions,  and  10,640  members.  Eight  years  after- 
wards, that  is  a  year  after  the  death  of  its  illustrious 
General  Aquaviva,  the  Society  had  thirty-two 
provinces,  372  colleges,  41  novitiates,  123  residences, 
13,112  members.  Ten  years  later,  namely  in  1626, 

[343] 


344  The  Jesuits 

there  were  thirty-six  provinces,  2  vice-provinces,  446 
colleges,  37  seminaries,  40  novitiates,  24  professed 
houses,  about  230  missions,  and  16,060  members. 
Finally  in  1640  the  statistics  showed  thirty-five 
provinces,  3  vice-provinces,  521  colleges,  49  semi- 
naries, 54  novitiates,  24  professed  houses,  about  280 
residences  and  missions  and  more  than  16,000  mem- 
bers." 

Before  giving  these  "cold  statistics,"  as  they  are 
described,  the  authors  had  conducted  their  readers 
through  the  various  countries  of  Europe,  where  this 
educational  influence  was  at  work.  "  Italy,"  we  are 
informed,  "  was  the  place  in  which  the  Society  received 
its  programme  and  its  constitution,  and  from  which  it 
extended  its  influence  abroad.  Its  success  in  that 
country  was  striking,  and  if  the  educated  Italians 
returned  to  the  practices  and  the  Faith  of  the  Church, 
if  it  was  inspired  with  zeal  for  asceticism  and  the 
missions,  if  it  set  itself  to  compose  devotional  poetry 
and  hymns  of  the  Church,  and  to  consecrate  to  the 
religious  ideal,  as  if  to  repair  the  past,  the  brushes 
of  its  painters  and  the  chisels  of  its  sculptors,  is  it  not 
the  fruit  of  the  education  which  the  cultivated  classes 
received  from  the  Jesuits  in  the  schools  and  the  con- 
fessionals? Portugal  was  the  second  fatherland  of 
the  Society.  "  There  it  was  rapidly  acclimated.  Indeed, 
the  country  fell,  at  one  stroke,  into  the  hands  of  the 
Order;  whereas  Spain  had  to  be  won  step  by  step. 
It  met  with  the  opposition  of  Spanish  royalty,  the 
higher  clergy,  the  Dominicans.  Charles  V  distrusted 
them;  Philip  II  tried  to  make  them  a  political  machine, 
and  some  of  the  principal  bishops  were  dangerous 
foes,  but  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  Society  had 
won  over  the  upper  classes  and  the  court,  and  soon 
Spain  had  ninety-eight  colleges  and  seminaries  richly 
endowed,  three  professed  houses,  five  novitiates,  and 


Culture  345 

four  residences,  although  the  population  of  the  country 
at  that  time  was  scarcely  5,000,000. 

"  In  France  a  few  Jesuit  scholars  presented  them- 
selves at  the  university  in  the  year  1540.  They  were 
frowned  upon  by  the  courts,  the  clergy,  the  parliament, 
and  nearly  all  the  learned  societies.  It  was  only  in 
1561,  after  the  famous  Colloque  de  Poissy,  that  the 
Society  obtained  legal  recognition  and  was  allowed  to 
teach,  and  in  1564  it  had  already  ten  establishments, 
among  them  several  colleges.  One  of  the  colleges, 
that  of  Clermont,  became  the  rival  of  the  University 
of  Paris,  and  Maldonatus,  who  taught  there,  had  a 
thousand  pupils  following  his  lectures.  In  1610  there 
were  five  French  provinces  with  a  total  of  thirty-six 
colleges,  five  novitiates,  one  professed  house,  one 
mission,  and  1400  members.  La  Fl£che,  founded  by 
Henry  IV,  had  1,200  pupils.  In  1640  the  Society  in 
France  had  sixty-five  colleges,  two  academies,  two 
seminaries,  nine  boarding-schools,  seven  novitiates, 
four  professed  houses,  sixteen  residences  and  2050 
members. 

"  In  Germany  Canisius  founded  a  boarding  school 
in  Vienna,  with  free  board  for  poor  scholars,  as  early 
as  1554.  In  1555  he  opened  a  great  college  in  Prague; 
in  1556,  two  others  at  Ingolstadt  and  Cologne  respec- 
tively, and  another  at  Munich  in  1559.  They  were 
all  founded  by  laymen,  for,  with  the  exception  of 
Cardinal  Truchsess  of  Augsburg,  the  whole  episcopacy 
was  at  first  antagonistic  to  the  Order.  In  1560  they 
found  the  Jesuits  their  best  stand-by,  and  in  1567  the 
Fathers  had  thirteen  richly  endowed  schools,  seven  of 
which  were  in  university  cities.  The  German  College 
founded  by  Ignatius  in  Rome  was  meantime  filling 
Germany  with  devoted  and  learned  priests  and  bishops, 
and  between  1580  and  1590  Protestantism  disappeared 
from  Treves,  Mayence,  Augsburg,  Cologne,  Pader- 


346  The  Jesuits 

born,  Munster  and  Hildesheim.  Switzerland  gave 
them  Fribourg  in  1580,  while  Louvain  had  its  college 
twenty  years  earlier. 

"In  1556  eight  Fathers  and  twelve  scholastics  made 
their  appearance  at  Ingolstadt  in  Bavaria.  The 
poison  of  heresy  was  immediately  ejected,  and  the 
old  Church  took  on  a  new  life.  The  transformation  was 
so  prodigious  that  it  would  seem  rash  to  attribute  it 
to  these  few  strangers;  but  their  strength  was  in  inverse 
proportion  to  their  number.  They  captured  the  heart 
and  the  head  of  the  country,  from  the  court  and  the 
local  university  down  to  the  people;  and  for  centuries 
they  held  that  position.  After  Ingolstadt  came  Dil- 
lingen  and  Wurzburg.  Munich  was  founded  in  1559, 
and  in  1602  it  had  900  pupils.  The  Jesuits  succeeded 
in  converting  the  court  into  a  convent,  and  Munich 
into  a  German  Rome.  In  1597  they  were  entrusted 
with  the  superintendence  of  all  the  primary  schools 
of  the  country,  and  they  established  new  colleges  at 
Altoetting  and  Mindelheim.  In  1621  fifty  of  them 
went  into  the  Upper  Palatinate,  which  was  entirely 
Protestant,  and  in  ten  years  they  had  established  four 
new  colleges. 

"  In  Styria,  Carinthia,  and  Carniola  there  was 
scarcely  a  vestige  of  the  old  Church  in  1571.  In  1573 
the  Jesuits  established  a  college  at  Gratz,  and  the 
number  of  communicants  in  that  city  rose  immediately 
from  20  to  500.  The  college  was  transformed  into  a 
university  twelve  years  later,  and  in  1602  and  1613 
new  colleges  were  opened  at  Klagenfurth  and  Leoben. 
In  Bohemia  and  Moravia  they  had  not  all  the  secondary 
schools,  but  the  twenty  colleges  and  eleven  seminaries 
which  they  controlled  in  1679  proved  that  at  least  the 
higher  education  and  the  formation  of  ecclesiastics  was 
altogether  in  their  hands,  and  the  seven  establishments 
and  colleges  on  the  northern  frontier  overlooking 


Culture  347 

Lutheran  Saxony  made  it  evident  that  they  were 
determined  to  guard  Bohemia  against  the  poison  of 
heresy."  The  writer  complains  that  they  even  dared 
to  dislodge  "  Saint  John  Huss  "  from  his  niche  and 
put  in  his  place  St.  John  Nepomucene,  "  who  was  at 
most  a  poor  victim,  and  by  no  means  a  saint." 
Bohmer's  translator,  Monod,  adds  a  note  here  to 
inform  his  readers  that  the  Jesuits  invented  the  legend 
about  St.  John  Nepomucene,  and  induced  Benedict 
XIII  to  canonize  him. 

Finally,  we  reach  Poland  where,  we  are  informed 
that  "  the  Jesuits  enjoyed  an  incredible  popularity. 
In  1600  the  college  of  Polotsk  had  400  students,  all 
of  whom  were  nobles;  Vilna  had  800,  mostly  belonging 
to  the  Lithuanian  nobility,  and  Kalisch  had  500. 
Fifty  years  later,  all  the  higher  education  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Order,  and  Ignatius  became,  literally,  the 
preceptor  Polonies,  and  Poland  the  classic  land  of  the 
royal  scholarship  of  the  north,  as  Portugal  was  in  the 
south. 

"In  India,  there  were  nineteen  colleges  and  two  semi- 
naries ;  in  Mexico,  fourteen  colleges  and  two  seminaries ; 
in  Brazil,  thirteen  colleges  and  two  seminaries;  in 
Paraguay,  seven  colleges,"  and  the  authors  might  have 
added,  there  was  a  college  in  Quebec,  which  antedated 
the  famous  Puritan  establishment  of  Harvard  in  New 
England,  and  which  was  erected  not  "  out  of  the  profits 
of  the  fur  trade,"  as  Renaudot  says  in  the  Margry 
Collection,  but  out  of  the  inheritance  of  a  Jesuit 
scholastic. 

After  furnishing  their  readers  with  this  splendid  list 
of  houses  of  education,  the  question  is  asked:  "  How 
can  we  explain  this  incredible  success  of  the  Order  as  a 
teaching  body?  If  we  are  to  believe  the  sworn 
enemies  of  the  Jesuits,  it  is  because  they  taught 
gratuitously,  and  thus  starved  out  the  legitimate 


Q 


48  The  Jesuits 

successors  of  the  Humanists.  That  might  explain  it 
somewhat,  they  say,  especially  in  southern  Italy, 
where  the  nobleman  is  always  next  door  to  the  laz- 
zarone,  but  it  will  by  no  means  explain  how  so  many 
princes  and  municipalities  made  such  enormous  out- 
lays to  support  those  schools;  for  there  were  other 
orders  in  Catholic  countries  as  rigidly  orthodox  as  the 
Jesuits.  No;  the  great  reason  of  their  success  must  be 
attributed  to  the  superiority  of  their  methods.  Read 
the  pedagogical  directions  of  Ignatius,  the  great 
scholastic  ordinances  of  Aquaviva,  and  the  testimony 
of  contemporaries,  and  you  will  recognize  the  glory  of 
Loyola  as  an  educator.  The  expansion  is  truly 
amazing;  from  a  modest  association  of  students  to  a 
world-wide  power  which  ended  by  becoming  as  uni- 
versal as  the  Church  for  which  it  fought;  but  superior 
to  it  in  cohesion  and  rapidity  of  action  —  a  world 
power  whose  influence  made  itself  felt  not  only  through- 
out Europe,  but  in  the  New  World,  in  India,  China, 
Japan;  a  world  power  on  whose  service  one  sees  at 
work,  actuated  by  the  same  spirit,  representatives  of 
all  races  and  all  nations:  Italians,  Spaniards,  Portu- 
guese, French,  Germans,  English,  Poles  and  Greeks, 
Arabians,  Chinamen  and  Japanese  and  even  red 
Indians;  a  world  power  which  is  something  such  as 
the  world  has  never  seen." 

Another  explanation  is  found  in  the  vast  wealth 
which  "  from  the  beginning  was  the  most  important 
means  employed  by  the  Order."  We  are  assured  that 
the  Jesuits  have  observed  on  this  point  such  an  absolute 
reserve  that  it  is  still  impossible  to  write  a  history  or 
draw  up  an  inventory  of  their  possessions.  But, 
perhaps  it  might  be  answered  that  if  an  attempt  were 
also  made  to  penetrate  "the  absolute  reserve"  of  those 
who  have  robbed  the  Jesuits  of  all  their  splendid 
colleges  and  libraries  and  churches  and  residences 


Culture  349 

which  may  be  seen  in  every  city  of  Europe  and  Spanish 
America,  with  the  I.H.S.  of  the  Society  still  on  their 
portals,  some  progress  might  be  made  in  at  least 
drawing  up  an  inventory  of  their  possessions. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Jesuits  have  laid  before  the 
public  the  inventories  of  their  possessions  and  those 
plain  and  undisguised  statements  could  easily  be  found 
if  there  was  any  sincere  desire  to  get  at  the  truth.  - 
Thus  Foley  has  published  in  his  "  Records  of  the 
English  Province  "  (Introd.,  139)  an  exact  statement 
of  the  annual  revenues  of  the  various  houses  for  one 
hundred  and  twenty  years.  Duhr  in  the  "  Jesuit- 
en-fabeln  "  (606  sqq.)  gives  many  figures  of  the  same 
kind  for  Germany.  Indeed  the  Society  has  been 
busy  from  the  beginning  trying  to  lay  this  financial 
ghost.  Thus  a  demand  for  the  books  was  made  as 
early  as  1594  by  Antoine  Arnauld  who  maintained  that 
the  French  Jesuits  enjoyed  an  annual  revenue  of 
1,200,000  livres,  which  in  our  day  would  amount  to 
$1,800,000.  Possibly  some  of  the  reverend  Fathers 
nourished  the  hope  that  he  might  be  half  right,  but  an 
official  scrutiny  of  the  accounts  revealed  the  sad  fact 
that  their  twenty-five  colleges  and  churches  with  a 
staff  of  from  400  to  500  persons  could  only  draw  on 
60,000  livres;  which  meant  at  our  values  $90,000  a 
year  —  a  lamentably  inadequate  capital  for  the  gigan- 
tic work  which  had  been  undertaken.  Arnaulds  under 
different  names  have  been  appearing  ever  since. 

How  this  "  vast  wealth  "  is  accumulated,  might  also 
possibly  be  learned  by  a  visit  to  the  dwelling-quarters 
of  any  Jesuit  establishment,  so  as  to  see  at  close  range 
the  method  of  its  domestic  economy.  Every  member 
of  the  Society,  no  matter  how  distinguished  he  is  or 
may  have  been,  occupies  a  very  small,  uncarpeted 
room  whose  only  furniture  is  a  desk,  a  bed,  a  wash- 
stand,  a  clothes-press,  a  prie-dieu,  and  a  couple  of 


350  The  Jesuits 

chairs.  On  the  whitewashed  wall  there  is  probably  a 
cheap  print  of  a  pious  picture  which  suggests  rather 
than  inspires  devotion.  This  roo.m  has  to  be  swept 
and  cared  for  by  the  occupant,  even  when  he  is 
advanced  in  age  or  has  been  conspicuous  in  the  Society, 
"  unless  for  health's  sake  or  for  reasons  of  greater 
moment  he  may  need  help."  The  clothing  each  one 
wears  is  cheap  and  sometimes  does  service  for  years; 
there  is  a  common  table;  no  one  has  any  money  of  his 
own,  and  he  has  to  ask  even  for  carfare  if  he  needs 
it.  If  he  falls  sick  he  is  generally  sent  to  an  hospital 
where,  according  to  present  arrangements,  the  sisters 
nurse  him  for  charity,  and  he  is  buried  in  the  cheapest 
of  coffins,  and  an  inexpensive  slab  is  placed  over  his 
remains. 

Now  it  happens  that  this  method  of  living  admits  of 
an  enormous  saving,  and  it  explains  how  the  17,000 
Jesuits  who  are  at  present  in  the  Society  are  able  not 
only  to  build  splendid  establishments  for  outside 
students,  but  to  support  a  vast  number  of  young  men 
of  the  Order  who  are  pursuing  their  studies  of  literature, 
science,  philosophy,  and  theology,  and  who  are  conse- 
quently bringing  in  nothing  whatever  to  the  Society 
for  a  period  of  eleven  years,  during  which  time  they  are 
clothed,  fed,  cared  for  when  sick,  given  the  use  of 
magnificent  libraries,  scientific  apparatus,  the  help  of 
distinguished  professors,  travel,  and  even  the  luxuries 
of  villas  in  the  mountains  or  by  the  sea  during  the 
heats  of  summer.  It  will,  perhaps,  be  a  cause  of 
astonishment  to  many  people  to  hear  that  this  particular 
section  of  the  Order,  thanks  to  common  life  and 
economic  arrangements,  could  be  maintained  year 
after  year  when  conditions  were  normal  at  the  amazingly 
small  outlay  of  $300  or  $400  a  man.  Of  course,  some 
of  the  Jesuit  houses  have  been  founded,  and  devoted 
friends  have  frequently  come  to  their  rescue  by  gen- 


Culture  351 

erous  donations,  but  it  is  on  record  that  in  the  famous 
royal  foundation  of  La  Fleche,  established  by  Henry  IV, 
where  one  would  have  expected  to  find  plenty  of  money, 
the  Fathers  who  were  making  a  reputation  in  France 
by  their  ability  as  professors  and  preachers  and  scien- 
tific men  were  often  compelled  to  borrow  each  other's 
coats  to  go  out  in  public.  Such  is  the  source  of  Jesuit 
wealth.  "  They  coin  their  blood  for  drachmas." 

*  Failing  to  explain  the  Jesuits'  pedagogical  success 
by  their  wealth,  it  has  been  suggested  that  their  pop- 
ularity  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
arose  from  the  fact  that  it  was  considered  to  be  "  good 
form  "  to  send  one's  boys  to  schools  which  were  fre- 
quented by  princes  and  nobles;  but  that  would  not 
explain  how  they  were,  relatively,  just  as  much  favored 
in  India  and  Peru  as  in  Germany  or  France.  Indeed 
there  Was  an  intense  opposition  to  them  in  France, 
particularly  on  the  part  of  the  great  educational 
centres  of  the  country,  the  universities:  first,  because 
the  Jesuits  gave  their  services  for  nothing,  and  secondly 
because  the  teaching  was  better,  but  chiefly,  according 
to  Boissier,  who  cites  the  authority  of  three  dis- 
tinguished German  pedagogues  of  the  sixtee.nth  century 
—  Baduel,  Sturm,  and  Cordier  —  "  because  to  the  dis- 
order of  the  university  they  opposed  the  discipline 
of  their  colleges,  and  at  the  end  of  three  or  four  years 
of  higher  studies,  regularly  graduated  classes  of  up- 
right, well-trained  men."  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
Dec.,  1882,  pp.  596,  610). 

Compayre,  who  once  figured  extensively  in  the 
field  of  pedagogical  literature,  finds  this  moral  con- 
trol an  objection.  He  says  it  was  making  education 
subsidiary  to  a  "  religious  propaganda."  If  this 
implies  that  the  Society  considers  that  the  supreme 
object  of  education  is  to  make  good  Christian  men  out 
of  their  pupils,  it  accepts  the  reproach  with  pleasure; 


352  The  Jesuits 

and,  there  is  not  a  Jesuit  in  the  world  who  would  not 
walk  out  of  his  class  to-morrow,  if  he  were  told  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  spiritual  formation  of  those 
committed  to  his  charge.  Assuredly,  to  ask  a  young 
man  in  all  the  ardor  of  his  youth  to  sacrifice  every 
worldly  ambition  and  happiness  to  devote  himself  to 
teaching  boys  grammar  and  mathematics,  to  be  with 
them  in  their  sports,  to  watch  over  them  in  their 
sleep,  to  be  annoyed  by  their  thoughtlessness  and 
unwillingness  to  learn;  to  be,  in  a  word,  their  servant 
at  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night,  for  years,  is  not 
calculated  to  inflame  the  heart  with  enthusiasm.  The 
Society  knows  human  nature  better,  and  from  the 
beginning,  its  only  object  has  been  to  develop  a  strong 
Christian  spirit  in  its  pupils  and  to  fit  them  for  their 
various  positions  in  life.  It  is  precisely  because  of 
this  motive  that  it  has  incurred  so  much  hatred,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  it  relinquished  this 
object  in  its  schools,  it  would  immediately  enjoy  a 
perfect  peace  in  every  part  of  the  world. 

Nor  can  their  educational  method  be  charged  with 
being  an  insinuating  despotism,  as  Compayre  insists, 
which  robs  the  student  of  the  most  precious  thing  in 
life,  personal  liberty;  nor,  as  Herr  describes  it,  "a 
sweet  enthrallment  and  a  deformation  of  character  by 
an  unfelt  and  continuous  pressure  "  (Revue  universi- 
taire,  I,  312).  "The  Jesuit,"  he  says,  "teaches  his 
pupils  only  one  thing,  namely  to  obey,"  which  we  are 
told,  "  is,  as  M.  Aulard  profoundly  remarks,  the  same 
thing  as  to  please "  (Enqueue  sur  1'enseignement 
secondaire,  I,  460).  In  the  hands  of  the  Jesuit, 
Gabriel  Hanotaux  tells  us,  the  child  soon  becomes  a 
mechanism,  an  automaton,  apt  for  many  things,  well- 
informed,  polite,  self-restrained,  brilliant,  a  doctor 
at  fifteen,  and  a  fool  ever  after.  They  become  excellent 
children,  delightful  children,  who  think  well,  obey  well, 


Culture  353 

recite  well,  and  dance  well,  but  they  remain  children 
all  their  lives.  Two  centuries  of  scholars  were  taught 
by  the  Jesuits,  and  learned  the  lessons  of  Jesuits,  the 
morality  of  the  Jesuits,  and  that  explains  the  decadence 
of  character  after  the  great  sixteenth  century.  If  there 
had  not  been  something  in  our  human  nature,  a 
singular  resource  and  things  that  can  not  be  killed, 
it  was  all  up  with  Prance,  where  the  Order  was  especi- 
ally prosperous. 

As  an  offset  to  this  ridiculous  charge,  the  names  of 
a  few  of  "  this  army  of  incompetents,"  these  men 
marked  by  "  decadence  of  character,"  might  be  cited. 
On  the  registers  of  Jesuit  schools  are  the  names  of 
Popes,  Cardinals,  bishops,  soldiers,  magistrates,  states- 
men, jurists,  philosophers,  theologians,  poets  and 
saints.  Thus  we  have  Popes  Gregory  XIII,  Benedict 
XIV,  Pius  VII,  Leo  XIII,  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  Cardinal 
de  Berulle,  Bossuet,  Belzunce,  Cardinal  de  Fleury, 
Cardinal  Frederico  Borromeo,  Flechier,  Cassini,  Sequier, 
Montesquieu,  Malesherbes,  Tasso,  Galileo,  Corneille, 
Descartes,  Molie're,  J.  B.  Rousseau,  Goldoni,  Tourne- 
fort,  Fontenelle,  Muratori,  Buffon,  Gresset,  Canova, 
Tilly,  Wallenstein,  Conde,  the  Emperors  Ferdinand  and 
Maximilian,  and  many  of  the  princes  of  Savoy,  Nemours 
and  Bavaria.  Even  the  American  Revolutionary  hero, 
Baron  Steuben,  was  a  pupil  of  theirs  in  Prussia,  and 
omitting  many  others,  nearly  all  the  great  men  of 
the  golden  age  of  French  literature  received  their 
early  training  in  the  schools  of  the  Jesuits. 

It  is  usual  when  these  illustrious  names  are  referred 
to,  for  someone  to  say:  "  Yes,  but  you  educated 
Voltaire."  The  implied  reproach  is  quite  unwarranted, 
for  although  Frangois  Arouet,  later  known  as  Voltaire, 
was  a  pupil  at  Louis-le-Grand,  his  teachers  were  not 
at  all  responsible  for  the  attitude  of  mind  which 
afterwards  made  him  so  famous  or  infamous.  That 
23 


354  The  Jesuits 

was  the  result  of  his  home  training  from  his  earliest 
infancy.  In  the  first  place,  his  mother  was  the  inti- 
mate friend  of  the  shameless  and  scoffing  courtesan  of 
the  period,  Ninon  de  1'Enclos,  and  his  god-father  was 
Chateauneuf,  one  of  the  dissolute  abb6s  of  those  days, 
whose  only  claim  to  their  ecclesiastical  title  was  that, 
thanks  to  their  family  connections,  they  were  able  to 
live  on  the  revenues  of  some  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment. This  disreputable  god-father  had  the  addi- 
tional distinction  of  being  one  of  Ninon's  numerous 
lovers.  It  was  he  who  had  his  fileul  named  in  her  will, 
and  he  deliberately  and  systematically  taught  him  to 
scoff  at  religion,  long  before  the  unfortunate  child 
entered  the  portals  of  Louis-le-Grand.  Indeed,  Vol- 
taire's mockery  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  was  nothing 
but  a  reminiscence  of  the  poem  known  as  the  "Moisade" 
which  had  been  put  in  his  hands  by  Chateauneuf  and 
which  he  knew  by  heart.  The  wonder  is  that  the 
Jesuits  kept  the  poor  boy  decent  at  all  while  he  was 
under  their  tutelage.  Immorality  and  unbelief  were 
in  his  home  training  and  blood. 

Another  objection  frequently  urged  is  that  the 
Jesuits  were  really  incapable  of  teaching  Latin,  Greek, 
mathematics  or  philosophy,  and  that  in  the  last 
mentioned  study  they  remorselessly  crushed  all 
originality. 

To  prove  the  charge  about  Latin,  Gazier,  a  doctor  of 
the  Sorbonne,  exhibited  a  "  Conversation  latine,  par 
Mathurin  Codier,  Jesuite."  Unfortunately  for  the 
accuser,  however,  it  was  found  out  that  Codier  not 
only  was  not  a  Jesuit,  but  was  one  of  the  first  Calvinists 
of  France.  Greek  was  taught  in  the  lowest  classes; 
and  in  the  earliest  days  the  Society  had  eminent 
Hellenists  who  attracted  the  attention  of  the  learned 
world,  such  as:  Gretser,  Viger,  Jouvancy,  Rapin, 
Brumoy,  Grou,  Fronton  du  Due,  P6tau,  Sirmond, 


Culture  355 

Gamier  and  Labbe.  The  last  mentioned  was  the 
author  of  eighty  works  and  his  "  Tirocinium  linguae 
graecae  "  went  through  thirteen  or  fourteen  editions. 
At  Louis-le-Grand  there  were  verses  and  discourses  in 
Greek  at  the  closing  of  the  academic  year.  Bernis 
says  he  used  to  dream  in  Greek.  There  were  thirty- 
two  editions  of  Gretser's  "  Rudimenta  linguas  graecae," 
and  seventy-five  of  his  "  Institutiones."  Huot,  when 
very  young,  began  a  work  on  Origen,  and  Bossuet, 
when  still  at  college,  became  an  excellent  Greek  scholar. 
They  were  both  Jesuit  students. 

'  The  Jesuits  were  also  responsible  for  the  collapse 
of  scientific  studies,"  says  Compayre"  (193,  197). 
The  answer  to  this  calumny  is  easily  found  in  the 
"  Monumenta  pedagogica  Societatis  Jesu "  (71-78), 
which  insists  that  "First  of  all,  teachers  of  mathematics 
should  be  chosen  who  are  beyond  the  ordinary,  and  who 
are  known  for  their  erudition  and  authority."  This 
whole  passage  in  the  "  Monumenta,"  was  written  by 
the  celebrated  Clavius.  Surely  it  would  be  difficult 
to  get  a  man  who  knew  more  about  mathematics 
than  Clavius.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  quote  the  words 
of  Lalande,  one  of  the  greatest  astronomers  of  France, 
who,  it  may  be  noted  incidentally,  was  a  pupil  of  the 
Jesuits.  In  1800  he  wrote  as  follows:  "Among  the 
most  absurd  calumnies  which  the  rage  of  Protestants 
and  Jansenists  exhale  against  the  Jesuits,  I  found  that 
of  La  Chalotais,  who  carried  his  ignorance  and  blindness 
to  such  a  point  as  to  say  that  the  Jesuits  had  never 
produced  any  mathematicians.  I  happened  to  be 
just  then  writing  my  book  on  '  Astronomy,'  and  I  had 
concluded  my  article  on  '  Jesuit  Astronomers,'  whose 
numbers  astonished  me.  I  took  occasion  to  see 
La  Chalotais,  at  Saintes,  on  July  20,  1773,  and 
reproached  him  with  his  injustice,  and  he  admitted 
it." 


356  The  Jesuits 

"  As  for  history,"  says  Compayre,  "  it  was  expressly 
enjoined  by  the  '  Ratio  '  that  its  teaching  should  be 
superficial."  And  his  assertion,  because  of  his  assumed 
authority,  is  generally  accepted  as  true,  especially  as 
he  adduces  the  very  text  of  the  injunction  which  says: 
"  Historicus  celerius  excurrendus,"  namely  "  let  his- 
torians be  run  through  more  rapidly."  Unfortunately, 
however,  the  direction  did  not  apply  to  the  study 
of  history  at  all,  but  to  the  study  of  Latin,  and  meant 
that  authors  like  Livy,  Tacitus,  and  Cassar  were  to  be 
gone  through  more  expeditiously  than  the  works  of 
Cicero,  for  example,  who  was  to  be  studied  chiefly  for 
his  exquisite  style.  In  brief,  the  charge  has  no  other 
basis  than  a  misreading,  intentional  or  otherwise,  of 
a  school  regulation. 

The  same  kind  of  tactics  are  employed  to  prove  that 
no  philosophy  was  taught  in  those  colleges,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  a  common  thing  for  princes  and  nobles 
and  statesmen  to  come  not  only  to  listen  to  philosoph- 
ical disputations  in  the  colleges,  in  which  they  them- 
selves had  been  trained,  but  to  take  part  in  them. 
That  was  one  of  Condi's  pleasures;  and  the  Intendant 
of  Canada,  the  illustrious  Talon,  was  fond  of  urging  his 
syllogisms  against  the  defenders  in  the  philosophical 
tournaments  of  the  little  college  of  Quebec.  Nor  were 
those  pupils  merely  made  to  commit  to  memory  the 
farrago  of  nonsense  which  every  foolish  philosopher  of 
every  age  and  country  had  uttered,  as  is  now  the  method 
followed  in  non-Catholic  colleges.  The  Jesuit  student 
is  compelled  not  only  to  state  but  to  prove  his  thesis,  to 
refute  objections  against  it,  to  retort  on  his  opponents, 
to  uncover  sophisms  and  so  on.  In  brief,  philosophy  for 
him  is  not  a  matter  of  memory  but  of  intelligence.  As 
for  independence  of  thought,  a  glance  at  their  history 
will  show  that  perhaps  no  religious  teachers  have  been 
so  frequently  cited  before  the  Inquisition  on  that  score, 


Culture  357 

and  none  to  whom  so  many  theological  and  philosoph- 
ical errors  have  been  imputed  by  their  enemies,  but 
whose  orthodoxy  is  their  glory  and  consolation. 

Their  failure  to  produce  anything  in  the  way  of 
painting  or  sculpture  has  also  afforded  infinite  amuse- 
ment to  the  critics,  although  it  is  like  a  charge  against 
an  Academy  of  Medicine  for  not  having  produced  any 
eminent  lawyers,  or  vice  versa.  It  is  true  that  Brother 
Seghers  had  something  to  do  with  his  friend  Rubens, 
and  that  a  Spanish  coadjutor  was  a  sculptor  of  dis- 
tinction, and  that  a  third  knew  something  about 
decorating  churches,  and  that  two  were  painters  in 
ordinary  for  the  Emperor  of  China,  but  whose  master- 
pieces however  have  happily  not  been  preserved. 
Huber,  an  unfriendly  author,  writing  about  the  Jesuits, 
names  Courtois,  known  as  Borgognone,  by  the  Italians, 
who  was  a  friend  of  Guido  Reni;  Dandini,  Latri, 
Valeriani  d'Aquila  and  Castiglione,  none  of  whom, 
however,  has  ever  been  heard  of  by  the  average  Jesuit. 
An  eminent  scholar  once  suggested  that  possibly  the 
elaborate  churches  of  the  Compania,  which  are  found 
everywhere  in  the  Spanish- American  possessions,  may 
have  been  the  work  of  the  lay-brothers  of  the  Society. 
But  a  careful  search  in  the  menologies  of  the  Spanish 
assistancy  has  failed  to  reveal  that  such  was  the  case. 
That,  however,  may  be  a  piece  of  good  fortune,  for 
otherwise  the  Society  might  have  to  bear  the  responsi- 
bility of  those  overwrought  constructions,  in  addition 
to  the  burden  which  is  on  it  already  of  having  perpe- 
trated what  is  known  as  the  "  Jesuit  Style "  of 
architecture.  From  the  latter  accusation,  however, 
a  distinguished  curator  of  the  great  New  York  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art,  Sir  Caspar  Purdon  Clarke, 
in  an  address  to  an  assembly  of  artists  and  architects, 
completely  exonerated  the  Society.  "  The  Jesuit 
Style,"  he  said,  "  was  in  existence  before  their  time, 


358  The  Jesuits 

and,"  he  was  good  enough  to  add,  "  being  gentlemen, 
they  did  not  debase  it,  but  on  the  contrary  elevated 
and  ennoblecf  it  and  made  it  worthy  of  artistic  con- 
sideration." 

So,  too,  the  Order  has  not  been  conspicuous  for 
its  poets.  One  of  them,  however,  Robert  Southwell, 
was  a  martyr,  and  wore  a  crown  that  was  prized  far 
more  by  his  brethren  than  the  laurels  of  a  bard. 
He  was  born  at  Norfolk  on  February  21,  1561,  and 
entered  the  Society  at  Rome  in  1578.  Singularly 
enough,  the  first  verses  that  bubbled  up  from  his  heart, 
at  least  of  those  that  are  known,  were  evoked  by  his 
grief  at  not  being  admitted  to  the  novitiate.  He  was 
too  young  to  be  received,  for  he  was  only  seventeen, 
and  conditions  in  England  did  not  allow  it;  but  his 
merit  as  a  poet  may  be  inferred  from  an  expression 
of  Ben  Jonson  that  he  would  have  given  many  of  his 
works  to  have  written  Southwell's  "  Burning  Babe," 
and,  according  to  the  "  Cambridge  History  of  Litera- 
ture "  (IV,  129),  "  though  Southwell  may  never  have 
read  Shakespeare,  it  is  certain  that  Shakespeare  read 
Southwell."  Of  course,  his  poems  are  not  numerous, 
for  though  he  may  have  meditated  on  the  Muse  while 
he  was  hiding  in  out  of  the  way  places  during  the  per- 
secutions, he  was  scarcely  in  a  mood  to  do  so  when 
he  was  flung  into  a  filthy  dungeon,  or  when  he  was 
stretched  on  the  rack  thirteen  different  times  as  a 
prelude  to  being  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered  at 
Tyburn. 

Eleven  years  after  that  tragedy,  Jacob  Balde  was 
born  in  the  imperial  free  town  of  Ensisheim  in  Alsace. 
He  studied  the  classics  and  rhetoric  in  the  Jesuit 
college  of  that  place,  and  philosophy  and  law  at 
Ingolstadt,  where  he  became  a  Jesuit  on  July  i,  1624. 
To  amuse  himself,  when  professor  of  rhetoric,  he  wrote 
his  mock-heroic  of  the  battle  of  the  frogs  and  mice, 


Culture  359 

"  Batrachomyomachia."  His  mastery  of  classical 
Latin  and  the  consummate  ease  with  which  he  handled 
the  ancient  verse  made  him  the  wonder  of  the  day. 
"  His  patriotic  accents,"  says  Herder,  "  made  him 
a  German  poet  for  all  time."  The  tragedies  of  the 
Thirty  Years  War  urged  him  to  strive  to  awaken  the 
old  national  spirit  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  He  was 
chiefly  a  lyrist,  and  was  hailed  as  the  German  Horace, 
but  he  was  at  home  in  epic,  drama,  elegy,  pastoral 
poetry  and  satire.  Of  course,  he  wrote  in  Latin,  which 
was  the  language  of  the  cultured  classes,  for  German 
was  then  too  crude  and  unwieldy  to  be  employed 
as  a  vehicle  for  poetry.  His  works  fill  eight  volumes. 
No  less  a  personage  than  Isaac  Watts,  the  English 
hymnologist,  makes  Mathias  Sarbiewski  (Sarbievius), 
the  Pole,  another  Horace,  though  his  poetry  was  mostly 
Pindaric.  Grotius  puts  him  above  Horace  (Brucker, 
505).  He  was  a  court  preacher,  a  companion  of  the 
king  in  his  travels,  a  musician  and  an  artist.  He 
wrote  four  books  of  lyrics,  a  volume  of  epodes,  another 
of  epigrams,  and  there  is  a  posthumous  work  of  his 
called  "  Silviludia."  His  muse  was  both  religious  and 
patriotic,  and  because  of  the  former,  he  was  called 
by  the  Pope  to  help  in  the  revision  of  the  hymns  of 
the  Breviary;  and  for  that  work  he  was  crowned  by 
King  Wladislaw.  His  prose  works  run  into  eight 
volumes.  There  are  twenty-two  translations  of  his 
poems  in  Polish,  and  there  are  others  in  German, 
Italian,  Flemish,  Bohemian,  English  and  French. 
Gosse  in  his  "  Seventeenth  Century  Studies  "  says 
that  Famian  Strada  who  wrote  "  The  Nightingale  " 
was  not  professedly  a  poet  but  a  lecturer  on  rhetoric. 
'  The  Nightingale  "  was  first  published  in  Rome  in 
1617  in  a  volume  of  "  Prolusiones  "  on  rhetoric  and 
poetry,  and  occurs  in  the  sixth  lecture  of  the  second 
course.  "  This  Jesuit  Rhetorician,"  Gosse  informs  us, 


360  The  Jesuits 

"  had  been  trying  to  familiarize  his  pupils  with  the 
style  of  the  great  Classic  poets,  by  reciting  to  them 
passages  in  imitation  of  Ovid,  Lucretius,  Lucian  and 
others.  '  This,'  he  told  them  '  is  an  imitation  of 
the  style  of  Claudian,'  and  so  he  gives  us  the  lines 
which  have  become  so  famous.  That  a  single  fragment 
in  a  schoolbook  should  so  suddenly  take  root  and 
blossom  in  European  literature,  when  all  else  that  its 
voluminous  author  wrote  and  said  was  promptly 
forgotten,  is  very  curious  but  not  unprecedented." 
In  England,  the  first  to  adopt  the  poem  was  John 
Ford  in  his  play  of  "  The  Lover's  Melancholy  "  in 
1629;  Crashaw  came  next  with  his  "  Music's  Duel," 
Ambrose  Philips  essayed  it  a  century  later;  and  in  our 
own  days,  Francois  Coppe'e  introduced  it  with  charming 
effect  in  his  "  Luthier  de  Cremone." 

The  French  Jesuit  Santeul  was  a  contemporary  of 
Strada  and  Balde.  He  was  considered  the  Ovid  of 
his  time,  and  was  as  remarkable  for  the  holiness  of  his 
life  as  for  his  unusual  poetical  ability. 

About  this  time,  there  was  a  German  Jesuit,  named 
Jacob  Masen  or  Masenius,  who  was  a  professor  of 
rhetoric  in  Cologne,  and  died  in  1681.  Among  his 
manuscripts  found  after  his  death  were  three  volumes, 
the  first  of  which  was  a  treatise  on  general  literature, 
the  second  a  collection  of  lyrics,  epics,  elegies  etc., 
and  the  third  a  number  of  dramas.  In  the  second 
manuscript  was  an  epic  entitled  "  Sarcotis."  The 
world  would  never  have  known  anything  about 
"  Sarcotis "  had  not  a  Scotchman,  named  Lauder, 
succeeded  in  finding  it,  somewhere,  about  1753,  i.  e. 
seventy-two  years  after  Masen's  death.  He  ran  it 
through  the  press  immediately,  to  prove  that  Milton 
had  copied  it  in  his  "  Paradise  Lost."  Whereupon 
all  England  rose  in  its  wrath  to  defend  its  idol. 
Lauder  was  convicted  of  having  intercalated  in  the 


Culture  361 

"  Sarcotis,"  a  Latin  translation  of  some  of  the  lines 
of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  and  had  to  hide  himself  in  some 
foreign  land  to  expiate  his  crime  against  the  national 
infatuation.  Four  years  later  (1757),  Abbe  Denouart 
published  a  translation  of  the  genuine  text  of  "  Sarcotis. " 
The  poem  was  found  to  be  an  excellent  piece  of  work, 
and  like  "  Paradise  Lost,"  its  theme  was  the  dis- 
obedience of  Adam  and  Eve,  their  expulsion  from 
Paradise,  the  disasters  consequent  upon  this  sin  of 
pride.  Whether  Milton  ever  read  "  Sarcotis  "  is  not 
stated. 

Frederick  von  Spee  is  another  Jesuit  poet.  He 
was  born  at  Kaiserwerth  on  the  Rhine  on  February 
25,  1591,  entered  the  Society  in  1610,  and  studied, 
taught  and  preached  for  many  years  like  the  rest  of 
his  brethren.  An  attempt  to  assassinate  him  was  made 
in  1629.  He  was  in  Treves,  when  it  was  stormed  by 
the  imperial  forces  in  1635,  witnessed  all  its  horrors, 
and  died  from  an  infection  which  he  caught  while 
nursing  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  in  the  hospital. 
It  was  only  in  the  stormy  period  of  his  life  that  he 
wrote  in  verse.  Two  of  his  works,  the  "  Goldenes 
Teigendbuck,"  and  the  "  Trutznachtigal  "  were  pub- 
lished after  his  death.  The  former  was  highly  prized 
by  Leibniz  as  a  book  of  devotion.  The  latter,  which 
has  in  recent  times  been  repeatedly  reprinted  and 
revised,  occupies  a  conspicuous  place  among  the  lyrical 
collection  of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  principal 
work,  however,  the  one,  in  fact,  which  gave  him  a  world- 
wide reputation,  (a  result  he  was  not  aiming  at,  for  the 
book  was  probably  published  without  his  consent),  is 
the  "  Cautio  Criminalis,"  which  virtually  ended  the 
witchcraft  trials.  It  is  written  in  exquisite  Latin, 
and  describes  with  thrilling  vividness  and  cutting 
sarcasm  the  horrible  abuses  in  the  prevailing  legal 
proceedings,  particularly  the  use  of  the  rack.  The 


362  The  Jesuits 

moral  impression  produced  by  the  work  soon  put  a 
stop  to  the  atrocities  in  many  places,  though  many 
a  generation  had  to  pass  before  witch-burning  ceased 
in  Germany. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  worth  while  to  mention  the  won- 
derful Beschi,  a  missionary  in  Madura,  whose  Tamil 
poetry  ordinary  mortals  will  never  have  the  pleasure 
of  enjoying.  Besides  writing  Tamil  grammars  and 
dictionaries,  as  well  as  doctrinal  works  for  his  converts, 
not  to  speak  of  his  books  of  controversy  against  the 
Danish  Lutherans  who  attempted  to  invade  the 
missions,  he  wrote  a  poem  of  eleven  hundred  stanzas  in 
honor  of  St.  Quiteria,  and  another  known  as  the 
"  Unfading  Garland,"  which  is  said  to  be  a  Tamil 
classic.  It  is  divided  into  thirty-six  cantos,  containing 
in  all  3615  stanzas.  Baumgartner  calls  it  an  epic 
which  for  richness  and  beauty  of  language,  for  easy 
elegance  of  metre,  true  poetical  conception  and  execu- 
tion, is  the  peer  of  the  native  classics,  while  in  nobility 
of  thought  and  subject  matter  it  is  superior  to  them 
as  the  harmonious  civilization  of  Christianity  is  above 
the  confused  philosophical  dreams  and  ridiculous  fables 
of  idolatry.  It  is  in  honor  of  St.  Joseph.  His  satire 
known  as  "  The  Adventures  of  Guru  Paramarta  "  is 
the  most  entertaining  book  of  Tamil  literature. 
Beschi  himself  translated  it  into  Latin;  it  has  also 
appeared  in  English,  French,  German  and  Italian. 

These  are  about  the  only  poets  of  very  great  prom- 
inence the  Socity  can  boast  of;  but  though  she  rejoices  in 
the  honor  they  won,  she  regards  their  song  only  as  an 
accidental  attraction  in  the  lives  of  those  distinguished 
children  of  hers.  What  she  cherishes  most  is  the 
piety  of  Sarbiewski  and  Balde,  the  martyrdom  of 
charity  gladly  accepted  by  von  Spec,  the  missionary 
ardor  of  Beschi,  and  the  blood  offering  made  by  South- 
well to  restore  the  Faith  to  his  unhappy  country. 


Culture  363 

Apart  from  these,  Cresset  also  may  be  claimed  as  a 
Jesuit  poet,  but  unfortunately  it  was  his  poetry  that 
blasted  his  career  as  an  apostle,  for  the  epicureanism 
of  one  of  his  effusions  compelled  his  dismissal  from 
the  Society.  His  brilliant  talents  counted  for  nothing 
in  such  a  juncture.  He  left  the  Order  with  bitter 
regret  on  his  part,  but  never  lost  his  affection  for  it, 
and  never  failed  to  defend  it  against  its  calumniators. 
His  "  Adieux  aux  Jesuites "  is  a  classic.  In  vain 
Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great  invited  him  to  Pots- 
dam. He  loathed  them  both,  and  withdrew  to  Amiens, 
where  he  spent  the  last  eighteen  years  of  his  life  in 
seclusion,  prayer  and  penance,  never  leaving  the 
place  except  twice  in  all  that  time.  On  both  occasions 
it, was  to  go  to  the  French  Academy,  of  which  his 
great  literary  ability  had  made  him  a  member.  In 
1750  he  founded  at  Amiens  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
Arts  and  Letters  which  still  exists.  It  is  said  that 
before  he  died  he  burned  all  his  manuscripts,  and  one 
cannot  help  regretting  that  instead  of  publishing  he 
had  not  committed  to  the  flames  the  poem  that  caused 
his  withdrawal  from  the  Society.  For  Gresset  the 
Jesuits  have  always  had  a  great  tenderness,  and 
it  might  be  added  here  that  he  is  a  fair  sample 
of  most  of  those  who,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
have  severed  their  connection  with  the  Society. 
There  have  been  only  a  few  instances  to  the  con- 
trary, and  even  they  repented  before  they  died. 

In  the  matter  of  oratory,  the  Society  has  had  some 
respectable  representatives  as  for  example,  that 
extraordinary  genius,  Vieira,  the  man  whose  stormy 
eloquence  put  an  end  to  the  slavery  of  the  Indians  in 
Brazil,  and  whose  "  Discourse  for  the  success  of  the 
Portuguese  arms,"  pronounced  when  the  Dutch  were 
besieging  Bahia  in  1640,  was  described  by  the  sceptical 
Raynal  to  be  "  the  most  extraordinary  outburst  of 


364  The  Jesuits 

Christian  eloquence."  He  is  considered  to  have  been 
one  of  the  world's  masters  of  oratory  of  his  time, 
and  to  have  been  equally  great  in  the  cathedrals  of 
Europe  and  the  rude  shrines  of  the  Maranhao.  He  was 
popular,  practical,  profoundly  original  and  frequently 
sublime.  He  has  left  fifteen  volumes  of  sermons  alone. 
Though  brought  up  in  Brazil  he  is  regarded  as  a 
Portuguese  classic. 

Paolo  Segneri,  who  died  in  1694,  is  credited  with 
being,  after  St.  Bernardine  of  Siena  and  Savonarola, 
Italy's  greatest  orator.  For  twenty-seven  years  he 
preached  all  through  the  Peninsula.  His  eloquence  was 
surpassed  only  by  his  holiness,  and  to  the  ardor  of  an 
apostle  he  added  the  austerities  of  a  penitent.  He  has 
been  translated  into  many  languages,  even  into  Arabic. 

Omitting  many  others,  for  we  are  mentioning  only 
the  supereminently  great,  there  is  a  Bourdaloue,  who  is 
entitled  by  even  the  enemies  of  the  Society  the 
prtdicateur  des  rois  et  le  roi  des  prtdicateurs 
(the  preacher  of  kings  and  the  king  of  preachers.) 
For  thirty-four  years  he  preached  to  the  most  exacting 
audience  in  the  world,  the  brilliant  throngs  that  gathered 
around  Louis  XIV,  and  till  the  end,  it  was  almost 
impossible  to  approach  the  church  when  he  was  to 
occupy  the  pulpit.  Lackeys  were  on  guard  days 
before  the  sermon.  The  "  Edinburgh  Review "  of 
December,  1826,  says  of  him:  "  Between  Massillon 
and  Bossuet,  at  a  great  distance  certainly  above  the 
latter,  stands  Bourdaloue,  and  in  the  vigor  and  energy 
of  his  reasoning  he  was  undeniably,  after  the  ancients, 
Massillon's  model.  If  he  is  more  harsh,  and  addressed 
himself  less  to  the  feelings  and  passions,  it  is  certain 
that  he  displays  a  fertility  of  resources  and  an  exuber- 
ance of  topics,  either  for  observation  or  argument, 
which  are  not  equalled  by  any  orator,  sacred  or  profane. 
It  is  this  fertility,  this  birthmark  of  genius,  that  makes 


Culture  365 

us  certain  of  finding  in  every  subject  handled  by 
him,  something  new,  something  which  neither  his 
predecessors  have  anticipated  nor  his  followers  have 
imitated." 

To  this  Protestant  testimony  may  be  added  that  of 
the  Jansenist  Sainte-Beuve  in  his  "  Causeries  du  Lundi." 
His  estimate  of  Bourdaloue  is  as  follows:  "  I  know 
all  that  can  be  said  and  that  is  said  about  Bossuet. 
But  let  us  not  exaggerate.  Bossuet  was  sublime  in 
his  '  Funeral  Orations  ',  but  he  had  not  the  same  excel- 
lence in  his  sermons.  He  was  uneven  and  unfinished. 
In  that  respect,  even  while  Bossuet  was  still  living, 
Bourdaloue  was  his  master.  That  was  the  opinion  of 
their  contemporaries,  and  doubtless  of  Bossuet  himself. 
Unlike  Bossuet,  Bourdaloue  did  not  hold  the  thunders 
in  his  hand,  nor  did  the  lightnings  flash  around  his 
pulpit,  nor,  like  Massillon,  did  he  pour  out  perfumes 
from  his  urn.  But  he  was  the  orator,  such  as  he 
alone  could  have  been,  who  for  thirty-four  years  in 
succession  could  preach  and  be  useful.  He  did  not 
spend  himself  all  at  once,  did  not  gain  lustre  by  a 
few  achievements,  nor  startle  by  some  of  those  splendid 
utterances  which  carry  men  away  and  evoke  their 
plaudits;  but  he  lasted;  he  built  up  with  perfect 
surety ;  he  kept  on  incessantly,  and  his  power  was  like 
an  army  whose  work  is  not  merely  to  gain  one  or  two 
battles,  but  to  establish  itself  in  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country  and  stay  there.  That  is  the  wonder- 
ful achievement  of  the  man  whom  his  contemporaries 
called  '  The  Great  Bourdaloue ',  and  whom  people 
obstinately  persist  in  describing  as  '  the  judicious  and 
estimable  Bourdaloue.' 

"  He  had  what  was  called  the  imperatoria  virtus, 
that  sovereign  quality  of  a  general  who  rules  every 
alignment  and  every  step  of  his  soldiers,  so  that  nothing 
moves  them  but  his  command.  Such  is  the  impres- 


366  The  Jesuits 

sion  conveyed  by  the  structure  of  his  discourses;  by  their 
dialectical  form,  by  their  solid  demonstrations,  which 
move  forward  from  the  start,  first  by  pushing  ahead 
the  advance  corps,  then  dividing  his  battalions  into 
two  or  three  groups,  and  finally  establishing  a  line  of 
battle  facing  the  consciences  of  his  hearers.  On  one 
occasion,  when  he  was  about  to  preach  at  St.  Sulpice 
there  was  a  noise  in  the  church  because  of  the  crowd, 
when  above  the  tumult  the  voice  of  Cond6  was  heard, 
shouting,  as  Bourdaloue  entered  the  pulpit :  '  Silence ! 
Behold  the  enemy!'  " 

We  may  subjoin  to  these  two  appreciations  the 
judgment  of  the  Abbe  Maury,  himself  a  great  orator. 
He  is  cited  by  Sainte-Beuve :  "  Bourdaloue  is  more 
equal  and  restrained  than  Bossuet  in  the  beauty  and 
incomparable  richness  of  his  designs  and  plans,  which 
seem  like  unique  conceptions  in  the  art  and  control  of 
a  discourse  wherein  he  is  without  a  rival ;  in  his  dialectic 
power,  in  his  didactic  and  steady  progress,  in  his  ever 
increasing  strength,  in  his  exact  and  serried  logic, 
and  in  the  sustained  eloquence  of  his  ratiocination, 
in  the  solidity  and  opulence  of  his  doctrinal  preaching 
he  is  inexhaustible  and  unapproachable."  Sainte- 
Beuve  adds  to  this  eulogy:  "  Bourdaloue's  life  and 
example  proclaim  with  a  still  louder  emphasis, 
that  to  be  eloquent  to  the  end,  to  be  so,  both  far  and 
near,  to  wield  authority  and  to  compel  attention, 
whether  on  great  or  startling,  simple  or  useful  themes, 
you  must  have  what  is  the  principle  and  source  of  it 
all,  the  virtue  of  Bourdaloue." 

With  the  exception  of  Padre  Isla,  the  satirist,  and 
Baltasar  Gracian,  the  author  of  "Wordly  Wisdom"  and 
of  " El  Criticon,"  which  seems  to  have  suggested  Robin- 
son Crusoe  to  Defoe,  the  Society  has  not  produced  any 
very  remarkable  prose  writer  in  the  lighter  kind  of 
literature,  and  perhaps  even  their  style  in  other  kinds 


Culture  367 

of  writing  may  have  suffered  because  of  the  intensity 
and  rapidity  with  which  they  were  compelled  to  work. 
Nevertheless  some  of  them  are  said  to  be  classics  in 
their  respective  languages  as,  for  instance,  Vieira  in 
Portuguese,  Ribadeneira  in  Spanish,  and  Skarga  in 
Polish.  The  Frenchman,  Dominique  Bouhours,  is  per- 
haps the  one  who  is  most  remarkable  in  this  respect. 
Petit  de  Julleville  in  his  "  Histoire  de  la  langue  et 
de  la  litterature  frangaise  "  says  that  "  Bouhours  was 
incontestably  the  master  of  correct  writing  in  his 
generation.  The  statutes  of  the  Jesuits  prevented 
him  from  being  an  Academician,  but  he  '  was  something 
better,'  as  someone  said  when  the  Father  was  striving 
to  evade  him :  '  Academiam  tu  mihi  solus  f acis  — 
For  me  you  constitute  the  Academy.'  Not  only  in 
his  Order  was  he  considered  the  official  censor,  under 
whose  eyes  all  sorts  of  writings  had  to  pass,  even  those 
of  Maimbourg  and  Bourdaloue,  but  people  came 
from  all  parts  of  the  literary  world  to  consult  him. 
Saint-Evremond  and  Bossuet  were  only  too  glad 
to  be  guided  by  him.  The  President  Lamoigno  sub- 
mitted to  him  his  official  pronouncements,  and  Racine 
sent  his  poems  with  the  request  to  '  mark  the  faults 
that  might  have  been  made  in  the  language  of  which 
you  are  one  of  the  most  excellent  judges.'  In  the 
history  of  the  French  language  Bouhours  left  no  date  — 
he  made  an  epoch." 

The  Jesuits  were  also  literary  arbiters  in  countries 
and  surroundings  where  there  was  no  Bouhours. 
Thus  the  Society  had  four  or  five  hundred  grammarians 
and  lexicographers  of  the  languages  of  almost  every 
race  under  the  sun.  Wherever  the  missionaries  went, 
their  first  care  was  to  compile  a  dictionary  and  make 
a  grammar  of  the  speech  of  the  natives  among  whom 
they  were  laboring,  and  if  the  learned  world  at  present 
knows  anything  at  all  of  the  language  of  vast  numbers 


368  The  Jesuits 

of  aboriginal  tribes  who  have  now  vanished  from  the 
earth,  it  is  due  to  the  labors  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries. 

But  this  was  only  an  infinitesimal  part  of  their 
literary  output.  In  his  "  Bibliotheque  des  ecrivains 
de  la  compagnie  de  Jesus,"  which  is  itself  a  stupendous 
literary  achievement,  Sommervogel  has  already  drawn 
up  a  list  of  120,000  Jesuit  authors  and  he  has  restricted 
himself  to  those  who  have  ceased  from  their  labors  on 
earth  and  are  now  only  busy  in  reading  the  book  of 
life.  Nor  do  these  120,000  authors  merely  connote 
120,000  books;  for  some  of  these  writers  were  most 
prolific  in  their  publications.  The  illustrious  Gretser, 
for  instance,  "  the  Hammer  of  Heretics,"  as  he  was 
called,  is  credited  with  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine 
titles  of  printed  works  and  thirty-nine  MSS.  which 
range  over  the  whole  field  of  erudition  open  to  his 
times:  archaeology,  numismatics,  theology,  philology, 
polemics,  liturgy,  and  so  on.  Kircher,  who  died  in 
1680,  wrote  about  everything.  During  the  time  he 
sojourned  in  Rome,  he  issued  forty-four  folio  volumes 
on  subjects  that  are  bewildering  in  their  diversity  and 
originality :  hieroglyphics,  astronomy,  astrology,  medico- 
physics,  linguistics,  ethnology,  horoscopy,  and  what 
not  else  besides.  We  owe  to  him  the  earliest  counting- 
machine,  and  it  was  he  who  perfected  the  Aeolian 
harp,  the  speaking  tube,  and  the  microscope. 

We  have  chosen  these  great  men  merely  as  examples 
of  the  literary  activity  of  the  Society  during  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  Indeed,  this 
inundation  of  books  grew  so  alarming  in  its  proportions 
that  the  enemies  of  the  Church  complained  that  it  was 
a  plot  of  the  Jesuits  who,  being  unable  to  suppress 
other  books,  had  determined  to  deluge  the  world  with 
their  own  publications. 

In  the  domain  of  church  history  they  have,  it  is  true, 
nothing  to  compare,  in  size,  with  the  thirty  volumes 


Culture  369 

of  the  Dominican  Natalis  Alexander;  the  thirty-six 
of  Fleury;  or  the  twenty-eight  of  the  "Espana  Sagrada" 
of  the  Augustinian  Florez,  which,  under  his  con- 
tinuator,  Risco,  reached  forty  volumes.  Berault- 
Bercastel,  indeed,  wrote  twenty-eight,  but  it  was  after 
the  Society  was  suppressed.  Perhaps  they  refrained 
from  entering  that  field  because  they  regarded  it  to  be 
sufficiently  covered,  or  because,  in  order  to  devote 
one's  self  to  historical  work,  one  needs  leisure,  great 
libraries,  and  security  of  possession.  Their  absorbing 
pedagogical  and  missionary  work  left  leisure  to  but 
a  few  Jesuits  in  those  stirring  times,  and  they  were 
besides  being  continually  despoiled  of  the  great  libraries 
they  had  gathered,  and  never  sure  of  having  a  roof 
over  their  heads  the  day  after  a  work  might  be  begun. 
Seizures  and  expulsions  form  a  continual  series  in  the 
Society's  history.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were 
making  history  by  their  explorations,  and  the  letters 
they  sent  from  all  parts  of  the  world  which  according 
to  rule  they  were  compelled  to  write,  furnish  to-day 
and  for  all  time,  the  most  invaluable  historical  data 
for  every  part  of  the  globe.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
had  not  even  time  to  write  an  account  of  their  own 
Order.  Cordara,  Orlandini,  Jouvancy,  and  Sacchini 
cover  only  limited  periods,  and  as  has  been  remarked 
above,  it  was  not  until  Father  Martin  ordered  a  com- 
plete series  of  histories  of  the  various  sections  of  the 
Society  that  the  work  was  undertaken.  This  is 
planned  on  a  much  vaster  scale  than  the  older  writers 
ever  dreamt  of,  and  some  of  the  volumes  have  already 
been  published. 

In  profane  history,  however,  the  versatile  Famian 
Strada  distinguished  himself  in  1632  by  his  "  Wars  of 
Flanders,"  and  the  work  was  continued  by  two  of  his 
religious  brethren,  Dondini  and  Gallucio.  Clavigero's 
"  Ancient  History  of  Mexico,"  in  three  quarto  volumes, 
24 


370  The  Jesuits 

published  after  the  Suppression,  is  a  notable  work, 
as  are  also  his  "  History  of  California,"  and  a  third 
on  the  "  Spanish  Conquest."  Alegre's  three  volumes, 
"  History  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  New  Spain"  is  of 
great  value.  Mariana's  complete  "  History  of  Spain," 
in  twenty-five  books,  is  still  recognized  as  an  authority, 
and  it  will  be  of  interest  to  know  that  as  late  as 
1888  a  statue  was  erected  at  Talavera,  in  honor  of 
the  same  tumultuous  writer,  who  was  incarcerated  for 
his  book  on  "  Finance."  Charlevoix's  voluminous 
histories  of  New  France,  of  Japan,  of  Paraguay,  and 
of  Santo  Domingo  are  also  worthy  of  consideration. 
Bancroft  frequently  refers  to  him  as  a  valuable  his- 
torian, and  John  Gilmary  Shea  insists  that  he  is  too 
generally  esteemed  to  need  commendation. 

There  is,  however,  an  historical  work  of  the  Society 
which  has  no  peer  in  literature:  the  great  hagiological 
collection  known  as  the  "  Acta  Sanctorum  "  of  the 
Bollandists,  which  was  begun  in  the  first  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  is  still  being  elaborated. 
It  consists  at  present  of  sixty-four  folio  volumes. 
This  vast  enterprise  was  conceived  by  the  Belgian 
Father  Rosweyde,  but  is  known  as  the  work  of  the 
Bollandists,  from  the  name  of  Rosweyde's  immediate 
successor,  Bollandus.  When  the  first  volume,  which 
was  very  diminutive  when  compared  with  the  present 
massive  tomes,  was  sent  to  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  he 
exclaimed:  "this  man  wants  to  live  three  hundred 
years."  He  regarded  the  plan  as  chimerical,  but  it  has 
been  realized  by  a  self-perpetuating  association  of 
Jesuits  living  at  Brussels.  When  one  member  is  worn 
out  or  dies,  someone  else  is  appointed  to  fill  the  gap, 
and  so  the  work  goes  on  uninterruptedly.  The  two 
first  volumes,  containing  pages,  which  appeared  in 
1643,  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  the  scientific  world, 
and  Pope  Alexander  VII  publicly  testified  that  "  there 


Culture  371 

had  never  been  undertaken  a  work  more  glorious  or 
more  useful  to  the  Church." 

In  other  fields  of  work  the  Society  has  not  been  idle. 
Even  the  acrid  "  Realencyclopadie  fur  protestantische 
Theologie  und  Kirche "  says  (VIII,  758),  "the 
Order  has  not  lacked  scholars.  It  can  point  to  a  long 
series  of  brilliant  names  among  its  members,  but 
they  have  only  given  real  aid  to  the  advancement  of 
science  in  those  spheres  which  have  close  connection 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  such  as  mathematics, 
the  natural  sciences,  chronology,  explanation  of  classical 
writers  and  inscriptions.  The  service  of  Jesuit  astrono- 
mers like  Christopher  Schlussel  (Clavius) ,  the  corrector 
of  the  calendar;  Christopher  Schreiner,  the  discoverer 
of  the  sun  spots;  Francesco  Da  Vico,  the  discoverer 
of  a  comet  and  observer  of  the  transit  of  Venus ;  Angelo 
Secchi,  the  investigator  of  the  sun,  and  a  meteorologist, 
are  universally  acknowledged.  And  no  less  credit  is 
given  to  the  services  of  the  Order  afforded  by  the 
optician  Grimaldi;  and  that  much  praised  all-round 
scholar  and  universal  genius  (Doctor  centum  artium) 
Athanasius  Kircher.  Among  the  classical  writers  is 
Angelo  Mai." 

This  is  certainly  not  a  bad  list  from  an  unfriendly 
source,  and  possibly  might  be  helped  out  by  a  few 
suggestions.  Thus  Otto  Hartig,  the  Assistant  Librarian 
of  the  Royal  Library  of  Munich,  tells  us  in  "  The 
Catholic  Encyclopedia  "  that  Ritter  very  justly  traces 
the  source  and  beginning  of  modern  geography  to  the 
"  Acta  Sanctorum "  of  the  Jesuit  Bollandists,  who 
gathered  up  the  crude  notes  of  the  journeys  of  the 
early  missionaries  with  their  valuable  information 
about  the  customs,  language  and  religion  of  the  in- 
habitants on  the  frontiers  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
along  the  Rhine  and  Danube,-  of  the  British  Isles, 
Russia,  Poland,  the  Faroe  Islands,  Iceland  and  the 


372  The  Jesuits 

Far  East.  Another  signal  contribution  to  geography 
was  the  "  Historia  naturaly  moral  de  las  Indias  "  of 
Jose"  d'Acosta,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  writers  on  the 
natural  history  of  the  New  World  and  the  customs 
of  the  Indians.  The  first  thorough  exploration  of 
Brazil  was  made  by  Jesuit  missionaries  led  by  Father 
Ferre  (1599-1632).  The  Portuguese  priests,  Alvares 
and  Bermuder,  who  went  to  Abyssinia  on  an  embassy 
to  the  king  of  that  country,  were  followed  by  the  Jesuits. 
Fernandes  crossed  southern  Abyssinia  in  1613,  and  set 
foot  in  regions  which  until  recently  were  closed  to 
Europeans.  Paez  and  Lobo  were  the  first  to  reach  the 
sources  of  the  Blue  Nile,  and  as  early  as  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  they  with  Almeida, 
Menendes  and  Teles  drew  up  a  map  of  Abyssinia  which 
is  considered  the  best  produced  before  the  time  of 
Abbadie  (1810-97).  The  Jesuit  missionaries,  Machado, 
Affonso  and  Paiva,  in  1630  endeavored  to  establish 
communications  between  Abyssinia  and  the  Congo; 
Ricci  and  Schall,  both  of  whom  were  learned 
astronomers,  made  a  cartographic  survey  of  China. 
Ricci  is  commonly  "known  as  the  Geographer  of  China, 
and  is  compared  to  Marco  Polo.  Andrada  was  the  first 
to  enter  Tibet,  a  feat  which  was  not  repeated  until 
our  own  times.  The  Jesuits  of  Canada,  among  whom 
was  Marquette,  were  the  first  to  furnish  the  learned 
world  with  information  about  upper  North  America; 
Mexico  and  California  as  far  as  the  Rio  Grande,  were 
travelled  by  Kino  (1644-1711),  Sedlmayer  (1703-79) 
and  Baegert  (1717-77);  and  the  Jesuit,  Wolfgang 
Beyer,  reached  Lake Titicaca  between  1752  and  1766- 
eighty  years  before  the  celebrated  globe-navigator 
Meyer  arrived  there.  Ramion  sailed  up  the  Cassi- 
quiare,  from  the  Rio  Negro  to  the  Orinoco  in  1744, 
and  thus  anticipated  La  Condamine,  Humboldt,  and 
Bonpland.  Samuel  Fritz  in  1684  established  the 


Culture  373 

importance  of  the  Maranhao  as  the  main  tributary  of 
the  Amazon,  and  drew  the  first  map  of  the  country. 
Techo  (1673),  Harques  (1687),  and  Duran  (1638)  told 
the  world  all  about  Paraguay,  and  d'Ovaglia  (1646) 
about  Chile.  Gruber  and  d'Orville  reached  Lhasa 
from  Pekin,  and  went  down  into  India  through  the 
Himalaya  passes. 

Possibly  it  is  worth  while  here  to  give  more  than  a  pass- 
ing notice  to  the  ascent  of  the  Nile  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  made  by  the  noted  Pedro  Paez,  a  Spanish 
Jesuit.  He  left  an  account  of  it  which  Kircher  pub- 
lished in  his  "  (Edipus  ^Egyptiacus  "  but  which  James 
Bruce  angrily  described  as  an  invention.  Bruce  claims 
that  he  himself  was  the  first  to  explore  the  river.  But 
Bruce  followed  Paez  by  at  least  150  years.  The 
question  is  discussed  at  length  by  two  writers  in  the 
"  Biographic  universelle,"  under  the  titles  "  Bruce  " 
and  "  Paez." 

Paez  was  born  at  Olmeda  in  1564.  He  entered  the 
Society  when  he  was  eighteen  years  of  age  and  was 
sent  to  Goa  in  1588.  He  was  assigned  to  attempt  an 
entry  of  Abyssinia;  to  facilitate  his  work,  he  assumed 
the  dress  of  an  Armenian.  He  had  to  wait  a  year 
for  a  ship  at  Ormuz,  and  when,  at  last,  he  embarked 
he  was  captured  by  an  Arab  pirate,  ill-treated  and 
thrown  into  prison.  As  he  was  unable  to  procure  a 
ransom,  he  spent  seven  years  chained  to  the  oar  as  a 
galley  slave,  but  was  finally  set  free  and  reached  Goa 
in  1596.  He  was  then  employed  in  several  missions 
of  Hindostan,  but  again  set  out  for  Abyssinia  which 
he  reached  in  1603.  To  acquaint  himself  with  the 
language  of  the  people  he  buried  himself  in  a  monastery 
of  Monophysite  monks,  and  then  began  to  give  public 
lessons  in  the  city.  His  success  as  a  teacher  attracted 
attention,  and  he  was  finally  called  before  the  emperor, 
where  his  eloquence  and  correctness  of  speech  capti- 


374  The  Jesuits 

vated  and  ultimately  helped  to  convert  the  monarch. 
A  grant  of  land  was  given  him  at  Gorgora  where  he 
built  a  church.  The  question  of  the  sources  of  the 
Nile  was  frequently  discussed,  and  in  1618  Paez 
ascended  the  river.  He  was  thus  the  first  modern 
European  to  make  the  attempt.  He  told  the  story  in 
the  two  large  octavos,  which  at  the  time  of  the  Suppres- 
sion could  be  found  in  most  of  the  libraries  of  the 
Society.  Bruce  asserts,  however,  that  nothing  is  said 
in  these  volumes  about  the  discovery,  and  he  accuses 
Kircher  of  imposture.  But,  says  the  writer  in  the 
"  Biographic  universelle,"  the  fact  is  that  between 
the  account  of  Paez  and  that  of  Bruce  there  is  scarcely 
any  difference  except  in  a  few  insignificant  details;  so 
that  if  Bruce  is  right,  so  also  are  Paez  and  Kircher. 
Paez  explored  the  river  as  early  as  1618,  whereas  Bruce 
arrived  there  only  in  1772,  that  is  154  years  later. 
"Bruce,"  says  another  writer  "makes  it  clear  that 
someone  had  preceded  him  and  displays  his  temper  in 
every  line." 

The  great  English  work,  "  The  Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography,"  handles  Bruce  more  severely. 
"  He  was  in  error,"  it  says,  "  in  regarding  himself 
as  the  first  European  who  had  reached  these  fountains. 
Pedro  Paez,  the  Jesuit,  had  undoubtedly  done  so  in 
1615,  and  Bruce's  unhandsome  attempt  to  throw 
doubt  on  the  fact  only  proves  that  love  of  fame  is  not 
literally  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  but  may 
bring  much  more  unlovely  symptoms  in  its  train. 
He  was  endowed  with  excellent  abilities,  but  was 
swayed  to  an  undue  degree  by  self-esteem  and  thirst 
for  fame.  He  was  uncandid  to  those  he  regarded  as 
rivals,  and  vanity  and  the  passion  for  the  picturesque 
led  him  to  embellish  minor  particulars  and  perhaps  in 
some  instances  to  invent  them.  He  delayed  for 
twelve  years  the  composition  of  his  narrative  and  then 


Culture  375 

dictated  it  to  an  amanuensis,  indolently  omitting  to 
refer  to  the  original  journals  and  hence  frequently 
making  a  lamentable  confusion  of  facts  and  dates. 
His  report  is  highly  idealised  and  he  will  always  be 
the  poet  of  African  travel."  The  book  did  not  appear 
till  1790.  The  missionary,  success  of  Paez  consisted  in 
uniting  schismatical  Abyssinia  to  Rome  in  1624. 
He  died  shortly  afterwards,  and,  when  the  depraved 
Emperor  Basilides  mounted  the  throne  in  1634,  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  were  handed  over  to  the  axe  of 
the  executioner.  Paez,  it  may  be  remarked,  was  not 
the  only  one  whom  Bruce  vilified.  After  Paez  came 
the  Portuguese  Jesuit  Jeronimo  Lobo,  a  very  inter- 
esting and  lengthy  account  of  whose  daring  missionary 
work  may  be  found  in  the  "  Biographic  universelle." 
The  writer  tells  us  that  Lobo  published  his  narrative  in 
1659,  and  that  it  was  again  edited  by  the  Royal  Society 
of  London  in  1688.  Legrand  translated  it  into  French 
in  1728,  and  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  gave  a  compendious 
translation  of  it  in  1734.  The  complete  book  was 
reprinted  in  1798,  and  in  the  preface  the  editors  take 
Bruce  to  task  for  his  treatment  of  both  Paez  and  Lobo. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  notice  of  "  Bruce  " 
in  the  "  Encyclopedia  Britannica "  (ninth  edition) 
does  not  say  a  single  word  either  of  Paez  or  Lobo, 
although  both  had  attracted  so  much  notice  in  the 
modern  literary  world. 

It  was  due  to  the  Jesuits  that  France  established 
subventions  for  geographical  research.  In  1651  Mar- 
tino  Martini,  kinsman  of  the  celebrated  Eusebio  Kino, 
published  his  "  Atlas  Sinensis ",  which  Richtoven 
described  as  "  the  fullest  geographical  description  of 
China  that  we  have."  Kircher  published  his  famous 
"  China  illustrata  "  in  1667.  Verbiest  was  the  imperial 
astronomer  in  China,  and  so  aroused  the  interest  of 
Louis  XIV  that  he  sent  out  six  Jesuit  astronomers  at 


376  The  Jesuits 

his  own  expense  and  equipped  them  with  the  finest 
instruments.  One  of  these  envoys,  Gerbillon,  explored 
the  unknown  regions  north  of  China,  and  he,  with 
Buvet,  R6gis  and  Jarton  and  others,  made  a  survey  of 
the  Great  Wall,  and  then  mapped  out  the  whole 
Chinese  empire  (1718).  Manchuria  and  Mongolia  as 
far  as  the  Russian  frontier  and  Tibet  to  the  sources 
of  the  Ganges  were  included.  The  map  ranks  as  a 
masterpiece  even  to-day.  It  consists  of  120  sheets, 
and  it  has  formed  the  basis  of  all  the  native  maps 
made  since  then.  De  Halde  edited  all  the  reports 
sent  to  him  by  his  brethren,  and  published  them  in 
his  "  Description  geographique,  historique,  politique, 
physique  et  chronologique  de  1'empire  de  Chine  et  de 
la  Tartarie  chinoise."  The  material  for  the  maps 
in  this  work  was  prepared  by  d'Anville,  the  greatest 
geographer  of  the  time,  but  he  was  not  a  Jesuit.  In 
addition  to  these  works,  were  written  fifteen  volumes 
by  the  missionaries  of  Pekin  about  the  history  and 
customs  of  the  Chinese,  and  published  in  Paris. 

These  Jesuit  astronomers  and  geographers  were 
associate  members  of  all  the  learned  societies  of 
Europe,  and  were  especially  serviceable  to  those  bodies 
in  being  able  to  determine  the  longitude  and  latitude 
of  the  places  they  described.  Between  1684  and  1686 
they  fixed  the  exact  position  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  and  of  Louveau  in  Siam.  As  early  as  1645 
Riccioli  attempted  to  determine  the  length  of  a  degree 
of  longitude.  Similar  work  was  done  by  Thoma  in 
China,  Boscovitch  and  Maire  in  the  Papal  States, 
Leisganig  in  Austria;  Mayer  in  the  Palatinate,  and 
Beccaria  and  Canonica  in  northwestern  Italy.  Veda 
published  the  first  map  of  the  Philippines  about  1734. 
Mezburg  and  Guessman  made  maps  of  Galicia  and 
Poland,  Andrian  of  Carinthia,  and  Christian  Meyer  of 
the  Rhine  from  Basle  to  Mains,  Riccioli,  a  distin- 


Culture  377 

guished  reformer  of  cartography,  published  his  "  Alma- 
gestum  novum ",  and  his  "  Geographia  et  hydro- 
graphia  reformata  "  as  early  as  1661.  Kircher  gave 
the  world  his  "  Arsmagnetica  "  and  "Mundus  subter- 
raneus  "  about  the  same  time,  and  made  the  ascent 
of  Etna  and  Stromboli  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  to  measure 
their  craters.  His  theory  of  the  interior  of  the  earth 
was  accepted  by  Leibniz  and  by  the  entire  Neptunist 
school  of  geology.  He  was  the  first  to  attempt  to 
chart  the  ocean  currents.  Heinrich  Scherer  of  Dil- 
lingen  (1620-1740)  devoted  his  whole  life  to  geography, 
and  made  the  first  orographical  and  hydrographical 
synoptic  charts.  Johann  Jacob  Hemmer  was  the 
founder  of  the  first  meteorological  society,  which  had 
contributors  from  all  over  the  world.  This  list  is 
sufficiently  glorious. 

Perhaps  it  might  be  noted  here  that  these  eminent 
men  were  not  primarily  seeking  distinction  or  aiming 
at  success  in  the  sciences  to  which  they  devoted  them- 
selves. That  consideration  occupied  only  a  secondary 
place  in  their  thoughts  and  the  glory  they  achieved 
was  sought  exclusively  to  enable  them  the  more  easily 
to  reach  the  souls  of  men.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
that  motive  inspired  them  with  greater  zeal  in  the 
prosecution  of  their  work  than  a  merely  human  pur- 
pose would  have  done.  Assuredly,  it  would  have  been 
much  more  comfortable  for  Ricci  and  Schall  and  Verbiest 
and  Grimaldi  to  be  looking  through  telescopes  in  the 
observatories  of  Europe  than  at  Canton  or  Pekin, 
where  every  moment  they  were  in  danger  of  having  their 
heads  cut  off.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  after  more  than 
forty  years  of  service  for  China's  education  in  mathe- 
matics and  astronomy,  the  only  reward  that  Father 
Schall  reaped  was,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  dragged  to 
court,  though  he  was  paralyzed  and  speechless,  and 
to  be  condemned  to  be  hacked  to  pieces. 


378  The  Jesuits 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  philosophers  of  the  Society 
have  never  evolved  any  independent  philosophical  or 
theological  thought,  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  that 
term.  That  is,  they  have  never  acted  like  the  captain 
of  a  ship  who  would  throw  his  charts  and  compass 
overboard,  and  insist  that  North  is  South  because  he 
thinks  it  so.  The  aim  of  philosophy  is  intellectual 
truth  and  not  the  extravagances  of  a  disordered 
imagination.  Contrary  to  the  modern  superstition, 
Catholic  philosophers  are  not  hampered  in  their 
speculations  by  authority,  nor  are  they  compelled  in 
their  study  of  logic,  metaphysics  and  ethics  to  draw 
proofs  from  revelation.  Philosophy  is  a  human  not  a 
divine  science,  but  on  the  other  hand,  Catholic  phil- 
osophy is  prevented  from  going  over  the  abyss  by  the 
possession  of  a  higher  knowledge  than  unassisted 
human  reason  could  ever  attain.  Thus  protected,  it 
speculates  with  an  audacity,  of  which  those  who  are 
not  so  provided  can  have  no  conception.  For  them 
philosophy  ruins  through  the  whole  theological  course, 
and  when  Holy  Scripture,  the  pronouncements  of  the 
Church,  and  the  utterances  of  the  Fathers  have 
established  the  truth  of  the  particular  doctrine  which 
is  under  consideration,  then  reason  enters,  and  elevated, 
ennobled,  fortified  and  illumined,  it  walks  secure  in 
the  highest  realms  of  thought.  Three  entire  years 
are  given  to  the  explicit  study  of  it,  in  the  formation 
of  the  Jesuit  scholastic,  and  it  continues  to  be  employed 
throughout  his  four  or  five  years  of  theology.  Both 
sciences  are  fundamental  in  the  Society's  studies,  and 
it  has  not  lacked  honor  in  either.  But  as  philosophy  is 
subsidiary  and  ancillary,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  set 
forth  what  is  said  about  the  Society's  theologians. 

Dr.  Joseph  Pohle  writing  in  "  The  Catholic  En- 
cyclopedia "  tells  us  that  controversial  theology  was 
carried  to  the  highest  perfection  by  Cardinal  Bellarmine. 


Culture  379 

Indeed,  there  is  no  theologian  who  has  defended 
almost  the  whole  of  Catholic  theology  against  the 
attacks  of  the  Reformers  with  such  clearness  and 
convincing  force.  Other  theologians  who  were  re- 
markable for  their  masterly  defence  of  the  Catholic 
Faith  were  the  Spanish  Jesuit  Gregory  'of  Valencia 
(d.  1603)  and  his  pupils  Adam  Tanner  (d.  1635)  and 
Jacob  Gretser  (d.  1625).  Nor  can  there  be  any 
question  that  Scholastic  theology  owes  most  of  its 
classical  works  to  the  Society  of  Jesus.  Molina  was 
the  first  Jesuit  to  write  a  commentary  on  the  theological 
"  Summa "  of  St.  Thomas,  and  was  followed  by 
Cardinal  Toletus  and  those  other  brilliant  Spaniards, 
Gregory  of  Valencia,  Suarez,  Vasquez,  and  Didacus 
Ruiz.  Suarez,  the  most  prominent  among  them,  is 
also  the  foremost  theologian  the  Society  of  Jesus  has 
produced.  His  renown  is  due  not  only  to  the  fertility 
and  wealth  of  his  literary  productions,  but  also  to  his 
clearness,  moderation,  depth  and  circumspection.  He 
had  a  critic,  both  subtle  and  severe,  in  his  colleague, 
Gabriel  Vasquez.  Didacus  Ruiz  wrote  masterly 
treatises  on  God  and  the  Trinity,  as  did  Christopher 
Gilles;  and  they  were  followed  by  Harruabal,  Ferdinand 
Bastida,  Valentine  Herice,  and  others  whose  names 
will  be  forever  linked  with  the  history  of  Molinism. 
During  the  succeeding  period,  John  Praepositus,  Caspar 
Hurtado,  and  Antonio  P6rez  won  fame  by  their  com- 
mentaries on  St.  Thomas.  Ripalda  wrote  the  best 
treatise  on  the  supernatural  order.  To  Leonard 
Lessius  we  owe  some  beautiful  treatises  on  God  and 
his  attributes.  Coninck  made  the  Trinity,  the  Incar- 
nation, and  the  Sacraments  his  special  study.  Cardinal 
John  de  Lugo,  noted  for  his  mental  acumen  and  highly 
esteemed  as  a  moralist,  wrote  on  the  virtue  of  Faith 
and  the  Sacraments  of  Penance  and  the  Eucharist. 
Claude  Tiphanus  is  the  author  of  a  classical  monograph 


380  The  Jesuits 

on  the  notions  of  personality  and  hypostasis,  and 
Cardinal  Pallavicini,  known  as  the  historiographer  of 
the  Council  of  Trent,  won  repute  as  a  dogmatic  theo- 
logian by  several  of  his  writings  (XIV,  593-94). 

With  regard  to  moral  theology,  Lehmkhul  tells  us 
that  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
arose  a  man  who  was,  so  to  say,  a  blessing  of  Divine 
Providence.  Owing  to  the  eminent  sanctity  which  he 
combined  with  solid  learning,  he  definitely  established 
the  system  of  moral  theology  which  now  prevails 
in  the  Church.  That  man  was  St.  Alphonsus  Maria 
Liguori,  who  was  canonized  in  1839,  and  declared  a 
Doctor  of  the  Church  in  1871.  In  his  youth  he  was 
imbued  with  the  stricter  principles  of  moral  theology, 
but  as  he  himself  confesses,  the  experience  of  fifteen 
years  of  missionary  life  and  careful  study  brought  him 
to  realize  the  falseness  and  the  evil  consequences  of 
the  system  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and  the 
necessity  of  a  change.  He,  therefore,  took  the 
"  Medulla "  of  the  Jesuit,  Hermann  Busembaum, 
subjected  it  to  a  thorough  examination,  confirmed  it  by 
internal  reasons  and  external  authority,  and  then 
published  a  work  which  was  received  with  universal 
applause,  and  whose  doctrine  is  entirely  on  Pro- 
babilistic principles.  This  approval  and  appropriation 
of  Busembaum's  teaching  by  one  who  has  been  made 
a  Doctor  of  the  Church  is  a  sufficient  vindication  of  the 
doctrine  of  Probabilism,  for  which  the  Society  suffered 
so  much,  and  is  at  the  same  time  a  magnificent  tribute 
to  the  greatness  of  Busembaum,  "  whose  book," 
Lemkuhl  contents  himself  with  saying,  "  was  widely 
used,"  whereas  forty  editions  of  it  had  been  issued 
during  the  author's  own  life,  which  happened  to  be 
an  entire  century  before  the  publication  of  Liguori 's 
great  work.  Busembaum's  "  Medulla  "  was  printed 
in  1645,  and  Liguori's  "  Moral  Theology  "  in  1748. 


Culture  381 

Up  to  1845,  there  were  200  editions  of  Busembaum; 
that  is,  one  edition  for  every  year  of  its  existence. 
In  the  history  of  moral  theology  Sanchez,  Layman, 
Azor,  Castro  Palao,  Torres,  Escobar  also  may  be 
cited  as  leading  lights. 

In  Scripture  there  are  the  illustrious  names  of 
Maldonado,  Ribera,  Prado,  Pereira,  Sancio  and 
Pineda.  Of  the  saintly  Cornelius  a  Lapide  (Vanden 
Steen)  a  Protestant  critic,  Goetzius,  said  in  1699: 
"  He  is  the  most  important  of  Catholic  Scriptural 
writers."  His  "  Commentary  of  the  Apocalypse " 
has  been  translated  into  Arabic.  In  ascetical  theology, 
St.  Ignatius  is  a  leader  in  modern  times;  and  his 
"  Spiritual  Exercises "  form  a  complete  system  of 
asceticism.  With  him  are  a  great  number  of  his 
sons,  whose  names  are  familiar  in  every  religious  house, 
such  as  Bellarmine,  Rodriguez,  Alvarez  de  Paz,  Gaudier, 
da  Ponte,  Lessius,  Lancicius,  Surin,  Saint- Jure,  Neu- 
mayr,  Dirckink,  Scaramelli,  Nieremberg  and  many 
others.  Finally,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  the  Society 
has  hearkened  to  the  second  rule  of  the  Summary 
of  its  Constitutions,  which  is  read  publicly  and  with 
an  unfailing  regularity  every  month  of  the  year,  in 
every  one  of  its  houses  throughout  the  world,  namely : 
that  "  the  End  of  this  Society  is  not  only  to  attend 
to  the  salvation  and  perfection  of  our  own  souls,  with 
the  divine  grace,  but  with  the  same,  seriously  to  employ 
ourselves  in  procuring  the  salvation  and  perfection  of 
our  neighbor." 

The  canonization  of  saints  proceeds  very  slowly  in 
the  modern  Church.  Years  and  years  are  spent  in 
preliminary  investigations  of  the  life,  the  holiness, 
the  doctrines,  and  the  miracles  of  the  one  who  is  to 
be  presented  to  the  public  recognition  of  the  Church. 
Theologians  and  canonists  have  to  pass  on  all  those 
points  and  those  who  testify  speak  only  under  the 


382  The  Jesuits 

most  solemn  oaths  and  the  threat  of  dire  censure 
if  they  witness  to  what  they  know  to  be  false.  Infinite 
labor  has  been  expended  before  the  question  is  pre- 
sented to  the  Holy  See.  Very  many  of  these  causes 
never  reach  even  that  stage,  for  everywhere,  in  its 
progress,  stands  an  official  called  the  Promoter  of  the 
Faith,  but  popularly  known  as  the  "  Devil's  Advocate," 
whose  work  consists  in  doing  his  utmost  to  throw 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  canonization.  Nevertheless, 
the  Society  has  a  sufficient  number  on  its  roll  of  fame, 
in  spite  of  its  comparatively  brief  and  perpetually 
perturbed  existence,  to  convince  the  world  that  it  is 
not  the  maleficent  organization  that  it  is  credited  with 
being. 

At  the  head  of  the  list  come  the  two  friends,  Ignatius 
and  Xavier,  dying  within  four  years  of  each  other: 
the  latter  in  1552,  the  former  in  1556.  The  third  is 
Borgia,  who  died  in  1572.  He  had  set  aside  all  the 
honors  of  the  world,  except  that  of  actual  royalty,  in 
order  to  take  the  lowest  place  in  the  Society,  but  he 
became  its  chief.  In  charming  contrast  with  these 
three  great  men,  are  the  three  boy  saints:  Stanislaus, 
Aloysius,  and  Berchmans,  dying  respectively  in  1568, 
1591  and  1621.  Stanislaus,  the  little  Polish  noble, 
travelled  all  the  way  from  Vienna  to  Rome  on  foot, 
a  distance  of  1500  miles,  to  enter  the  novitiate.  He 
had  no  money,  or  guide,  or  friends,  but  he  arrived 
safely,  for  the  angels  gave  him  Communion  on  his 
journey,  and  he  has  ever  since  been  the  darling  of  the 
beginners  in  religious  life.  Aloysius  was  of  princely 
blood,  but  died  nursing  the  sick  in  the  hospital.  He  is 
the  patron  of  youthful  purity,  and  was  never  a  priest, 
though  an  unwise  writer  makes  a  missionary  of  him. 
The  third,  John  Berchmans,  was  neither  prince  nor 
noble.  On  the  contrary,  it  used  to  be  the  delight  of 
foreigners,  when  rambling  through  the  little  Flemish 


Culture  383 

town  of  Diest,  to  see  the  name  of  "  Berchmans  "  on  the 
humble  shops  of  hucksters  and  grocers,  and  to  fancy 
that  some  of  the  little  lads  who  clattered  about  in  their 
sabots,  on  their  way  to  school,  were  relatives  of  his. 
His  sanctity  has  made  his  family  name  famous  in  the 
world.  His  beatification  was  especially  welcome,  be- 
cause, as  Berchmans  was  the  very  incarnation  of  the 
Jesuit  rule,  the  Order  cannot  have  been  the  iniquitous 
organization  it  is  frequently  said  to  be. 

Then  there  are  three  Japanese  Jesuits  who  were 
crucified  at  Nagasaki  in  1597 ;  and  in  1616  came  Alfonso 
Rodriguez,  who  had  prepared  Peter  Claver  to  be  the 
Apostle  of  the  negro  slaves  in  America,  and  who  went 
quietly  from  his  post  at  the  gates  of  the  College  of 
Minorca  to  the  gates  of  heaven.  Peter  Claver  had 
to  wait  for  thirty-eight  years  before  going  to  join  his 
venerable  friend.  Besides  the  two  St.  Francises  of  the 
early  days,  there  are  two  more  of  that  name  in  the 
Society :  the  Frenchman,  John  Francis  Regis,  who  died 
in  1640,  and  the  Italian,  Francis  Hieronymo,  whose 
work  ended  in  1716.  They  were  both  preachers  to 
the  most  abandoned  classes.  Hieronymo  could  gather 
as  many  as  15,000  men  to  a  regular  monthly  Com- 
munion, and  when  he  entered  the  royal  convict  ships, 
he  converted  those  sinks  of  iniquity  into  abodes  of 
peace  and  resignation. 

It  may  be  noted  here  that  St.  Francis  Regis  had 
a  distinction  peculiarly  his  own.  Long  after  his 
canonization  as  a  saint,  he  was  proclaimed  to  have 
been  actually  expelled  from  the  Society,  and  that  the 
public  disgrace  was  prevented  only  by  his  death, 
which  occurred  before  the  official  papers  arrived  from 
Rome.  This  accusation  is  trident-like  in  its  wounding 
power  or  purpose.  It  transfixes  Regis,  and  kills  his 
reputation  for  virtue;  then  it  inflicts  a  gash  on  the 
Society  by  making  it  present  to  the  Church,  as  worthy 


384  The  Jesuits 

of  being  raised  to  the  altars,  a  man  whom  it  was  un- 
willing to  keep  in  its  own  houses;  finally,  it  assails  the 
Church  and  attempts  to  show  that  no  respect  should 
be  had  for  its  decrees  of  canonization.  It  was  almost 
unnecessary  for  the  learned  Bollandist,  Van  Ortroy,  to 
show  that  there  is  no  foundation  whatever  for  this 
story  of  the  dismissal  of  St.  John  Francis  Regis  from 
the  Society  of  Jesus. 

Such  are  the  canonized  Jesuits.  The  Blessed  are 
more  numerous.  There  are  ninety-one  of  them.  First 
in  time  are  the  forty  Portuguese  martyrs  under  Ignatius 
de  Azevedo,  who  were  slain  by  the  French  Huguenots 
in  a  harbor  of  the  Azores  in  the  year  1570.  Then 
follow  the  English  witnesses  to  the  Truth.  The  first 
to  die  was  Thomas  Woodhouse,  who  was  executed  in 
1573.  Between  that  date  and  1582  four  others  were 
put  to  death;  among  them  the  illustrious  Edmund 
Campion.  Of  those  who  died  in  the  persecutions  of 
Japan,  between  1617  and  1627,  there  are  thirty-one 
Japanese  as  well  as  European  Jesuits.  Rudolf  Aqua- 
viva  was  put  to  death  in  Madura  in  1583,  and  John  de 
Britto  in  1693.  Two  Hungarians,  Melchior  Grodecz 
and  Stephen  Pongracz  were  slain  in  Hungary  in  1619, 
and  Andrew  Bobola  was  butchered  by  the  Cossacks 
in  1657.  There  are  others  among  the  Society's  Blessed 
who  were  not  martyred,  but  would  have  been  willing 
to  win  their  crown  in  that  way,  if  God  so  wanted. 
They  are  Peter  Faber,  the  first  priest  of  the  Society; 
Peter  Canisius,  the  Apostle  of  Germany;  and  the 
Italian  Antonio  Baldinucci,  a  great  missionary  who 
used  to  whip  himself  to  blood,  to  move  the  hearts  of 
the  hardened  sinners  around  him,  and  who  lighted 
bonfires  of  bad  books  and  pictures  and  playing  cards 
in  the  public  squares  to  impress  his  excitable  fellow- 
countrymen.  His  missionary  methods  were  some- 
what like  those  of  Savonarola. 


Culture  385 

Those  who  are  ranked  as  Venerable  are  fifty  in 
number,  including  Claude  de  la  Colombiere,  the  Apostle 
of  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart;  Cardinal  Bel- 
larmine;  Nicholas  Lancicius,  the  well-known  ascetical 
writer;  Julien  Maunoir,  the  apostle  of  his  native 
Brittany;  and  Jose  Anchieta,  the  thaumaturgus  of 
Brazil.  There  are,  however,  a  great  many  others 
under  consideration,  among  them  being  the  heroes  of 
North  America — Jogues,  Goupil,  Lalande,  Brebeuf, 
Lalemant,  Gamier,  Daniel,  Chabanel — who  were  slain 
by  the  Iroquois.  In  the  conclaves  of  1605,  which 
elected  Clement  VIII  and  Leo  XI,  Bellarmine  was  very 
seriously  considered  as  a  possible  pope,  but  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  Jesuit  was  an  obstacle  in  the  eyes  of  many. 
When  he  died  in  1621,  there  was  a  general  expectation 
that  he  would  be  canonized  for  his  extraordinarily 
holy  life.  In  fact,  Urban  VIII  who  was  so  rigid  in 
such  matters  placed  him  among  the  "  Venerable " 
six  years  after  his  death.  His  case  was  re-introduced 
for  beatification  in  1675,  1714,  1752  and  1832,  but 
nothing  was  done  chiefly  because  it  would  have  angered 
the  French  regalist  politicians,  as  his  name  was 
associated  with  a  doctrine  most  obnoxious  to  them.  In 
1920  the  case  was  again  taken  up. 

We  omit  the  countless  thousands  of  Jesuits  who  ever 
since  the  Society  was  established  have  striven  in  every 
possible  way  to  realize  its  ideals;  the  heroes  who  have 
hurried  with  delight  to  the  most  disgusting  and 
dangerous  missions  they  could  find  in  the  farthermost 
parts  of  the  world;  who  have  died  by  thousands  of 
disease  and  exhaustion  in  the  pest-laden  ships  that 
carried  them  to  their  destination  or  flung  them  dead 
on  some  desolate  coast;  or  those  who  have  been  slain 
by  savages  or  devoured  by  wild  beasts;  or  who  died 
of  starvation  in  the  forests  and  deserts  where  they 
were  hunting  for  souls;  or  have  given  their  lives  with 
25 


386  The  Jesuits 

joy  for  the  privilege  of  ministering  to  the  plague- 
stricken.  Nor  do  we  mention  here  the  great  phalanxes 
of  the  unknown  who,  without  a  single  regret  for  what 
they  might  have  been  in  the  world,  have  endeavored  to 
obey,  to  some  extent,  at  least,  that  startling  admonition 
that  they  hear  so  often:  A  ma  nesciri  et  pro  nihilo 
reputari:  "  Love  to  be  unknown  and  to  b'e  reputed  as 
nothing," — the  men  who  have  truly  lived  up  to  that 
ideal  in  the  repulsiveness  of  hospitals  and  jails  and 
asylums,  or  in  the  ceaseless  drudgery  and  obscurity  of 
the  class-room  and  the  unchanging  routing  of  house- 
hold occupations. 

These  men  have  seen  themselves  time  and  time  again 
robbed  of  all  their  possessions,  hounded  out  of  their 
own  countries  and  cities  as  if  they  were  criminals, 
their  names  branded  with  infamy  and  a  by-word  for 
all  that  is  vile,  and  they  understood  better  and  better, 
as  time  went  on,  what  is  meant  by  that  page  which 
stares  at  them  from  their  rule  book  and  which  is 
entitled:  "  The  Sum  and  Scope  of  Our  Constitutions," 
and  which  tells  them:  "  We  are  men  crucified  to 
the  world,  and  to  whom  the  world  is  crucified;  new 
men  who  have  put  off  their  own  affections  to  put  on 
Christ,  dead  to  themselves  to  live  to  justice;  who,  with 
St.  Paul,  in  labors,  in  watching,  in  fastings,  in  chastity, 
in  knowledge,  in  long-suffering,  in  sweetness,  in  the 
Holy  Ghost,  in  charity  unfeigned,  in  the  word  of 
truth,  shew  themselves  ministers  of  God;  and,  by  the 
armor  of  justice,  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
by  honor  and  dishonor,  by  evil  report  and  good  report, 
by  good  success  and  ill  success,  press  forward  with 
great  strides  to  their  heavenly  country,  and  by  all 
means  possible,  and  with  all  zeal,  urge  on  others  also, 
ever  looking  to  God's  greatest  glory." 


CHAPTER  XII 

PROM  VITELLESCHI   TO   RICCI 
I6I5-I773 

Pupils  in  the  Thirty  Years  War  —  Caraffa;  Piccolomini;  Gottifredi  — 
Mary  Ward  —  Alleged  decline  of  the  Society  —  John  Paul  Oliva  — 
Jesuits  in  the  Courts  of  Kings  —  John  Casimir  —  English  Persecu- 
tions. Luzancy  and  Titus  Gates  —  Jesuit  Cardinals  —  Gallicanism  in 
France  —  Maimbourg  —  Dez  —  Troubles  in  Holland.  De  Noyelle  and 
Innocent  XI  —  Attempted  Schism  in  France  —  Gonzdles  and  Prob- 
abilism  —  Don  Pedro  of  Portugal  —  New  assaults  of  Jansenists  — 
Administration  of  Retz  —  Election  of  Ricci  —  The  Coming  Storm. 

As  Mutius  Vitelleschi's  term  of  office  extended  from 
1615  to  1645,  it  coincided  almost  exactly  with  the 
Thirty  Years  War.  Of  course,  the  colleges,  which 
had  been  established  in  almost  every  country  in  Europe, 
felt  the  effects  of  this  protracted  and  devastating 
struggle,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  comfort  was  found 
in  the  fact  that  many  of  the  great  statesmen  and  soldiers 
of  that  epoch  had  been  trained  in  those  schools.  There 
was,  for  instance,  the  Emperor  Ferdinand,  of  whom 
Gustavus  Adolphus  used  to  say,  "  I  fear  only  his 
virtues,"  and  associated  with  him  was  Maximilian, 
the  Great,  who  was  so  ardent  in  the  practice  of  his 
religion  that  Macaulay  describes  him  as,  "a  fervent 
missionary  wielding  the  powers  of  a  prince."  He 
appointed  the  Jesuit  poet,  Balde,  as  his  court  preacher, 
and  called  to  Ingolstadt  the  Jesuit  astronomer, 
Scheiner,  who  disputed  with  Galileo  the  discovery  of 
the  sun-spots  —  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  discoveries 
of  both  synchronized  with  each  other,  but  Fabricius  is 
asserted  to  have  anticipated  both.  Scheiner  suggested 
and  planned  the  optical  experiment  which  bears  his 
name,  and  also  invented  the  pantograph. 

387 


388  The  Jesuits 

Tilly,  one  of  the  greatest  warriors  of  his  time,  had 
first  thought  of  entering  the  Society,  but,  on  the  advice 
of  his  spiritual  guides,  took  up  the  profession  of  arms. 
According  to  Spahn  "  he  displayed  genuine  piety, 
remarkable  self-control  and  disinterestedness  and 
seemed  like  a  monk  in  the  garb  of  a  soldier  "  (The 
Catholic  Encyclopedia,  XIV,  724).  As  he  was  in 
command  of  the  league  of  the  Catholic  states,  and  was 
ordered  to  restore  the  lands  which  had  been  wrested 
from  their  Catholic  owners,  of  course,  he  gained  the 
reputation  of  being  a  bitter  foe  of  Protestantism  — 
an  attitude  of  mind  which  was  attributed  to  his  edu- 
cation at  Cologne  and  Chatelet.  Wallenstein,  his 
successor,  was  educated  at  the  Jesuit  college  of  Olmutz 
and  was  a  liberal  benefactor  of  his  old  masters  in 
the  work  of  education.  The  fact  that  in  1633  they 
saved  from  the  fury  of  a  Vienna  mob  their  rancorous 
enemy,  the  famous  Count  de  Thurn,  when  he  was 
taken  prisoner  by  Wallenstein  in  the  Bohemian  uprising, 
ought  to  count  for  something  in  dissipating  the  delusion 
that  Jesuits  are  essentially  persecutors.  When  the 
Emperor  Mathias  sent  them  back  to  Bohemia  and 
founded  a  college  for  them  at  Tirnau  and  affiliated  it 
to  the  University  of  Prague,  they  showed  their  grati- 
tude by  sacrificing  a  number  of  their  men  in  the  pesti- 
lence which  was  then  raging. 

Richelieu,  who  was  prominent  in  what  was  called 
the  French  period  of  the  war,  was  particularly  solicitous 
in  protecting  the  interests  of  his  former  teachers. 
Although  politically  supporting  the  Protestant  cause, 
he  invariably  stipulated  in  his  treaties  that  the  Jesuits 
should  be  protected  in  the  territories  handed  over  to 
Protestant  control,  even  when  they  opposed  him,  as 
for  instance,  in  the  Siege  of  Prague,  where  Father 
George  Plachy,  a  professor  of  sacred  history  in  the 
university,  led  out  his  students  in  a  sortie  and  drove 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        389 

back  the  foe  —  an  exploit  which  merited  for  him  a 
mural  crown  from  the  city  while  Emperor  Ferdinand 
III  sent  an  autograph  letter  to  the  General  of  the 
Society  to  thank  him  for  the  patriotism  displayed  by 
Plachy.  Indeed,  when  the  Protestant  ministers  of 
Charenton  wanted  Richelieu  to  suppress  the  Jesuits, 
he  answered  that  "  it  was  the  glory  of  the  Society  to 
be  condemned  by  those  who  attack  the  Church,  cal- 
umniate the  saints,  and  blaspheme  Christ  and  God. 
For  many  reasons,  the  Jesuits  ought  to  be  esteemed  by 
everyone;  indeed  there  are  not  a  few  who  love  them 
precisely  because  men  like  you  hate  them." 

There  is  one  of  their  pupils  who,  at  this  time,  though 
a  man  of  unusual  ability,  brought  sorrow  not  only  on 
the  Society  but  also  on  the  universal  Church:  Marc 
Antonio  de  Dominis.  He  was  a  Dalmatian,  whose 
family  had  given  a  Pope  and  many  illustrious  prelates 
to  the  Church.  He  followed  the  course  of  the  Jesuit 
college  in  Illyria,  and  amazed  his  masters  by  the 
brilliancy  of  his  talents.  He  entered  the  novitiate, 
and  contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  Society  was  immedi- 
ately made  a  professor  of  sacred  eloquence,  philosophy 
and  mathematics.  Crowds  flocked  to  hear  him; 
meantime  he  distinguished  himself  in  the  pulpit. 
Apparently  he  was  a  priest  when  he  became  a  novice. 
The  fame  he  acquired,  however,  turned  his  head  and 
he  left  the  Society  to  become  a  bishop,  and  later  an 
archbishop,  in  Dalmatia.  But  his  utterances  soon 
showed  that  he  was  at  odds  with  the  Church.  He  was 
with  Venice  in  its  quarrel  with  the  Pope,  and  then 
relinquishing  his  archbishopric,  he  fled  to  England, 
where  he  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  James  I, 
who  kept  him  at  court,  showered  rich  benefices  on 
him  and  made  him  Dean  of  Windsor.  There  he  wrote 
a  book  entitled  "  De  republica  Christiana  "  (1620), 
which  denied  the  primacy  of  the  Pope.  Pursued  by 


390  The  Jesuits 

remorse  he  went  to  Rome  and  at  the  feet  of  Gregory  XV 
implored  forgiveness  for  his  apostasy.  But  his  repent- 
ance was  feigned.  His  letters  to  certain  individuals 
showed  that  he  was  still  a  heretic,  and  he  was  imprisoned 
in  Sant1  Angelo,  where  he  died  in  1624,  giving  signs  at 
the  last  moment  of  genuine  repentance. 

The  long  Generalate  of  Vitelleschi  was  clouded  by 
one  disaster:  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from  the 
Duchy  of  Lorraine.  They  had  opposed  the  bigamous 
marriage  of  the  duke,  but  his  confessor,  Father  Chemi- 
not,  claimed  that  there  were  sufficient  grounds  for 
invalidating  the  first  marriage,  and  took  the  opposite 
side.  He  was  expelled  from  the  Society  or  left  it. 

During  Vitelleschi's  time,  the  famous  English  nun, 
Mary  Ward,  appeared  in  Rome.  She  had  been  a  Poor 
Clare,  but  found  that  it  was  not  her  vocation  to  be 
a  contemplative,  and  she,  therefore,  proposed  to 
establish  a  religious  congregation  which  would  do 
for  women  in  their  own  sphere  what  the  Jesuits  were 
doing  for  men.  For  that  end  she  asked  for  dispensation 
from  enclosure,  choir  duty,  the  religious  habit  and 
also  freedom  from  diocesan  control.  As  all  this  was 
an  imitation  of  the  Society's  methods,  she  and  her 
companions  began  to  be  called  by  their  enemies 
"  Jesuitesses."  Their  demands,  of  course,  evoked  a 
storm,  but  Father  Vitelleschi  encouraged  them,  and 
Suarez  and  Lessius  were  deputed  to  study  the  con- 
stitutions of  the  new  congregation.  Nevertheless, 
although  the  women  were  the  recipients  of  very 
great  consideration  from  three  Popes,  Paul  V,  Gregory 
XV,  and  Urban  VIII,  the  committee  of  cardinals  to 
whom  the  matter  was  referred,  refused  in  1630  to 
approve  of  their  rules.  In  1639  the  little  group  returned 
to  England  where,  under  the  protection  of  Queen 
Henrietta  Maria,  they  began  their  work,  and  were 
approved  by  the  Holy  See.  At  first,  they  were  known 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        391 

in  Rome  as  "  The  English  Ladies."  In  Ireland  and 
America  they  are  "  The  Loretto  Nuns  "  (A  masterly 
review  of  this  incident  may  be  found  in  Guilday's 
"  English  Refugees,"  I,  c.  vi). 

Vitelleschi  died  in  February,  1645,  and  was  followed 
in  rapid  succession  by  Fathers  Caraffa,  Piccolomini, 
Gottifredi  and  Nickel,  whose  collective  terms  amounted 
only  to  seventeen  years.  Caraffa  governed  the  Society 
for  three  years;  Piccolomini  for  two;  and  Gottifredi 
died  before  the  congregation  which  elected  him  had 
terminated  its  work.  Nickel  was  chosen  in  1652.  He 
was  old  and  infirm  and  after  nine  years,  felt  compelled 
to  ask  for  a  Vicar-General  to  assist  him  in  his  work. 
The  one  chosen  for  this  office  was  John  Paul  Oliva.  He 
served  three  years  in  that  capacity,  but  as  he  had  been 
made  Vicar  with  the  right  of  succession,  he  became 
General  automatically  when  Father  Nickel  died  on 
July  31,  1664.  This  departure  from  usage  had  been 
allowed  with  the  approval  of  Pope  Alexander  VII. 
Oliva  was  a  Venetian  and  two  of  his  family,  his  grand- 
father and  uncle,  had  been  Doges  of  the  Republic. 
Before  his  election  to  the  office  of  General  he  had 
been  ten  years  master  of  novices  and  had  also  been 
named  rector  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum.  He 
was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  Conde  and  Turenne; 
and  Innocent  X  died  in  his  arms.  His  election  evidently 
gave  great  satisfaction.  Princes  and  cardinals  began 
to  multiply  the  colleges  of  the  Society  throughout 
Italy,  where  they  already  abounded.  Milan,  Naples, 
Cuneo,  Monbasileo,  Volturna,  Genoa,  Turin,  Savi- 
gliano,  Brera  and  other  cities  all  wanted  them. 

It  is  this  period  from  1615  to  1664,  which,  for  some 
undiscoverable  reason,  is  described  both  by  Ranke 
and  Bohmer-Monod  as  marking  the  deterioration  and 
decay  of  the  Society.  An  examination  of  this  indict- 
ment is,  of  course,  imperative;  and  though  it  must 


392  The  Jesuits 

necessarily  be  somewhat  polemical,  it  may  be  helpful 
to  a  better  understanding  of  the  situation  and  give  a 
more  complete  knowledge  of  facts.  Ranke  begins  his 
attack  by  throwing  discredit  on  Vitelleschi,.  describing 
him  as  a  man  of  "  little  learning,"  adducing  as  his 
authority  for  this  assertion  a  phrase  in  some  Italian 
writer  who  says  that  Vitelleschi  was  a  man  di  poche 
lettre  ma  di  santitd  di  vita  non  ordinaria."  Now  the 
obvious  meaning  of  this  is,  not  that  he  was  a  man  of 
"  little  learning,"  but  that  "  he  wrote  very  few  letters." 
As  he  belonged  to  an  unusally  illustrious  family  of 
princes,  cardinals,  and  popes;  and  as  he  had  not  only 
made  the  full  course  of  studies  in  the  Society,  but  had 
taught  philosophy  and  theology  for  several  years  and 
was  subsequently  appointed  to  be  the  Rector  of  the 
Collegium  Maximum  of  Naples,  which  was  the  Society's 
house  of  advanced  studies,  and  as  he  was,  besides, 
the  author  of  several  learned  works,  it  is  manifestly 
ridiculous  to  class  him  with  the  illiterates.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Mutius  Vitelleschi  was  a  far  better 
educated  man  than  Leopold  von  Ranke. 

Father  Nickel,  in  turn,  is  set  down  as  "rude,  dis- 
courteous, and  repulsive;  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
was  deposed  from  his  office  by  the  general  congregation, 
which  explicitly  declared  that  he  had  forfeited  all 
authority." 

It  would  be  hard  to  crowd  into  a  whole  chapter  as 
many  false  statements  as  this  much  and  perhaps 
over-praised  historian  contrives  to  condense  in  a  single 
sentence.  For  apart  from  the  inherent  impossibility 
of  anyone  who  was  "  rude,  repulsive  and  discourteous  " 
arriving  at  the  dignity  of  General  of  the  Society,  it 
is  absolutely  false  that  Father  Nickel  "  was  deposed 
from  his  office  and  was  explicitly  told  that  he  had 
forfeited  his  authority."  Far  from  this  being  the  case, 
it  was  he  who  had  summoned  the  congregation  in 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        393 

order  to  lay  before  it  the  urgent  necessity  of  his  being 
relieved  from  the  heavy  burden  of  his  office.  On  its 
assembling,  the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  ask  for  a 
Vicar  because  his  infirmities  and  his  age  —  he  was 
then  seventy-nine  years  old  —  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  fulfill  the  duties  of  his  office,  or  even  to  take  part 
in  the  proceedings  of  the  congregation.  Moreover, 
it  is  absolutely  calumnious  to  say  that  the  congregation 
explicitly  declared  that  he  had  forfeited  all  his  authority. 
Even  Ranke,  who  makes  the  charge,  declares  that  he 
was  guilty  of  no  trangression ;  nor  was  the  action  of 
the  congregation  in  defining  the  Vicar's  position  as 
"  not  being  in  conjunction  with  that  of  the  retiring 
General,"  anything  else  than  a  desire  to  avoid  having 
the  Society  governed  by  two  heads.  Nor  did  this 
denote  "  a  change  in  the  Society's  methods;"  for  there 
had  been  a  provision  in  the  constitution  from  the  very 
beginning  for  even  the  deposition  of  a  general.  Again, 
far  from  being  repulsive  in  his  manners,  the  congre- 
gation proclaimed  him  to  have  been  the  very  opposite. 
Indeed,  all  his  brethren  sympathized  with  him,  especially 
at  that  moment,  because,  besides  the  usual  burden  of 
his  office  and  his  age,  he  was  afflicted  by  the  sad  news 
which  had  just  reached  him  that  three  of  the  Fathers 
who  were  delegates  to  the  congregation  —  the  Vice- 
Provincial  of  Sardinia  and  his  two  associates  —  had 
been  shipwrecked  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  The 
words  of  the  congregation's  acceptance  of  his  with- 
drawal denote  nothing  but  the  deepest  reverence  and 
affection.  They  are:  Congregatio  obsequendum  duxit 
voluntati  charissimi  optimeque  meriti  Parentis,  that  is, 
:'  The  congregation  deemed  it  proper  to  comply  with  the 
desire  of  the  most  beloved  and  most  deserving  Father." 
Bohmer-Monod,  likewise,  in  spite  of  their  joint 
claim  to  sincerity  and  lack  of  bias,  are  especially 
denunciatory  of  the  character  of  the  Society  at  this 


394  The  Jesuits 

juncture.  "  It  is  no  longer,"  they  say,  "  an  autocracy, 
but  a  many-headed  oligarchy,  which  defends  its  rights 
against  the  General  as  jealously  as  did  the  Venetian 
nobles  against  the  doges.  The  military  and  monastic 
spirit  has  relaxed  and  a  spirit  of  luxurious  idleness 
and  greed  of  worldly  possessions  has  taken  its  place. 
Not  only  the  writings  of  the  enemies  of  the  Jesuits, 
but  the  letters  of  their  own  Generals  go  to  prove  it. 
Thus,  Vitelleschi  wrote,  in  1617,  that  the  reproach  of 
money-seeking  was  a  universal  one  against  the  Society. 
Nickel  also  sent  a  grand  circular  letter  to  recall  the 
Order  to  the  observance  of  Apostolic  poverty.  Indeed, 
John  Sobieski,  a  devoted  friend  of  the  Order,  could 
not  refrain  from  writing  to  Oliva :  '  I  remark  with  great 
grief  that  the  good  name  of  the  Society  has  much  to 
suffer  from  your  eagerness  to  increase  its  fortune 
without  troubling  yourselves  about  the  rights  of  others. 
I  feel  bound,  therefore,  to  warn  the  Jesuits  here  against 
their  passion  for  wealth  and  domination,  which  are 
only  too  evident  in  the  Jesuits  of  other  countries. 
Rectors  seek  to  enrich  their  colleges  in  every  way. 
It  is  their  only  thought/  But  these  reproaches  made 
no  impression  on  Oliva  who  was  a  sybarite  leading  an 
indolent  life  at  the  Gesu  or  in  his  beautiful  villa  of 
Albano.  Even  if  he  were  the  proper  kind  of  man,  he 
would  have  been  powerless,  for,  in  1661  Goswin 
Nickel  was  deposed  solely  because  of  his  rigidity  towards 
the  most  influential  members  of  the  Order.  The 
Constitution  of  the  Order  was  changed,  for  Oliva  was 
made  General  because  he  had  humored  the  nepotism 
of  the  Pope." 

The  answer  to  this  formidable  arraignment  is:  — 
First,  the  General  of  the  Society  cannot  be  an  auto- 
crat. He  must  rule  according  to  the  Constitutions; 
failing  in  this,  he  may  be  deposed  by  the  general 
congregation.  Secondly,  the  society  can  never  be 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        395 

ruled  by  an  oligarchy,  especially  by  "  an  oligarchy 
with  many  heads  "  which  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
The  only  oligarchy  possible  would  be  the  little  group 
around  the  General  known  as  the  assistants,  represent- 
ing the  different  national  or  racial  sections  of  the  Society. 
But  they  are  invested  with  no  authority  whatever. 
They  are  merely  counsellors,  are  elected  by  the  Con- 
gregation, and  ipso  facto  lose  their  office  at  the  death 
of  the  General,  though  of  course  they  hold  over  until 
the  election  of  his  successor.  The  metaphor  of  the 
Venetian  nobles  and  the  doges  has  no  application  in 
the  Society  of  Jesus. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  after  Vitelleschi's  death,  "  it 
lost  its  monastic  spirit  "  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
never  had  that  spirit.  The  Jesuits  are  not  monks  and 
their  official  designation  in  ecclesiastical  documents 
is  Clerici  Regulares  Societatis  Jesu  (Clerks,  or  Clerics, 
Regular  of  the  Society  of  Jesus).  It  is  precisely  because 
they  broke  away  from  old  monastic  traditions  and 
methods  that  they  were  so  long  regarded  with  suspicion 
by  the  secular  and  regular  or  monastic  clergy,  especially 
as  the  innovation  was  made  at  the  very  time  that 
Martin  Luther  was  furiously  assailing  monastic  orders. 
If,  however,  by  "  the  monastic  spirit  "  is  meant  the 
religious  spirit,  and  that  is  possibly  the  meaning  of 
the  writers,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  piety 
and  holiness  of  life  had  not  departed  from  the  Society. 
For  instance,  some  of  the  greatest  modern  ascetic 
writers  appeared  just  at  that  time  in  the  Society. 
Thus,  Suarez  died  in  1617,  and  Lessius  in  1623,  both 
of  whom  may  some  day  be  canonized  saints.  To  the 
latter,  St.  Francis  de  Sales  wrote  to  acknowledge  his 
spiritual  indebtedness  to  the  Society.  Living  at  that 
time  also  were  Bellarmine,  Petavius,  Nieremberg, 
Layman,  Castro  Palao,  Surin,  Nouet,  de  la  Colom- 
biere,  and  others  equally  spiritual.  Alvarez  de  Paz 


396  The  Jesuits 

died  in  1620,  Le  Gaudier  in  1622,  Drexellius  in  1630, 
Louis  Lallemant  in  1635,  Lancisius  in  1636,  de  Ponte 
in  1644,  Saint- Jure  in  1657.  Meantime,  the  famous 
work  on  "  Christian  Perfection  "  by  Rodriguez,  who 
died  in  1616,  had  been  making  its  way  to  every  religious 
house  in  Christendom.  There  was  also  a  great  number 
of  holy  men  in  the  Society  at  that  moment.  Had 
that  not  been  the  case,  Cardinal  Orsini,  who  died  in 
1627,  would  not  have  asked  for  admission;  nor  Charles 
de  Lorraine,  Prince  Bishop  and  Count  of  Verdun,  who 
had  entered  a  few  years  before;  nor  would  the  Pope 
have  made  the  great  Hungarian  Pazmany  a  cardinal 
in  1616,  and  Pallavicini  in  1659.  Blessed  Bernardino 
Realini  was  not  yet  dead;  St.  John  Berchmans  was 
living  in  1621 ;  and  St.  Peter  Claver  died  in  1654,  before 
his  adviser  St.  Alphonsus  Rodriguez;  St.  John  Francis 
Regis  made  his  first  vows  in  1633,  and  Vitelleschi 
himself  is  admitted  to  have  been  a  man  of  extraordinary 
sanctity.  A  religious  order  with  such  members  is  the 
reverse  of  decadent. 

The  "  military  spirit "  which  the  Society  was 
reproached  with  having  lost  was  no  doubt  the  daring 
"  missionary  spirit  "  which  won  her  so  much  glory  in 
the  early  days.  But  it  was  by  no  means  lost.  Andrada 
made  his  famous  journey  to  Tibet  in  1624;  de  Rhodes 
started  about  1630  on  his  famous  overland  trip  from 
India  to  Paris,  and  then  set  off  for  Persia  where  he 
died;  the  missionaries  of  North  America  were  exploring 
Hudson  Bay  and  the  Great  Lakes  and  searching  for  the 
Mississippi ;  those  of  South  America  were  following  the 
wonderful  Vieira  through  thousands  of  miles  of  forests 
and  along  endless  rivers  in  Brazil ;  others  were  searching 
the  Congo  or  Gold  Coast  or  Abyssinia  for  souls; 
Jeronimo  Xavier  and  de  Nobili  were  in  India;  others 
again  in  Persia  and  the  Isles  of  Greece;  and  Ricci  and 
Schall  and  their  companions  were  converting  China. 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        397 

There  were  martyrdoms  all  over  the  world,  like  those 
of  Brebeuf  and  his  companions  in  Canada;  Jesuits 
were  laying  down  their  lives  in  Mexico,  Paraguay, 
the  Caribbean  Islands,  the  Philippines,  Russia,  Eng- 
land, Hungary,  and  above  all  in  Japan,  where  every 
member  of  the  Society  was  either  butchered  or  exiled; 
while  thousands  of  their  brethren  in  Europe  were 
clamoring  to  take  their  places  in  the  pit  or  at  the  stake. 
That  condition  of  things  would  not  seem  to  connote 
degeneracy  or  decadence. 

As  for  the  "grand  circular  letter,  "which  Father  Nickel 
sent  out  to  the  whole  Society,  that  document  was 
nothing  but  an  academic  disquisition  on  the  relative 
importance  of  poverty  as  against  the  two  other  vows. 
It  was  not  a  censure  of  the  Society  for  its  non-observance 
of  poverty.  With  regard  to  Sobieski,  it  is  impossible 
to  imagine  that  he  ever  uttered  such  a  calumny  against 
his  most  devoted  friends.  They  had  trained  him 
intellectually  and  spiritually;  just  before  the  great 
battle  with  the  Tatars,  he  spent  the  whole  night  in 
prayer  with  his  Jesuit  confessor,  Przeborowski,  and 
in  the  morning  he  and  all  his  soldiers  knelt  to  receive 
the  priest's  blessing.  Finally,  when  the  bloody  battle 
was  won,  they  knelt  before  the  altar,  at  the  feet  of  the 
same  priest,  and  intoned  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  to 
God  for  the  glorious  victory.  When  Przeborowski 
died,  Father  Vota  took  his  place,  and  it  was  he  who 
induced  the  hero  to  join  the  League  of  Augsburg, 
thus  helping  him  to  win  the  glory  of  being  regarded  as 
the  saviour  of  Europe,  when  on  September  12,  1683, 
he  drove  back  the  Turks  from  the  gates  of  Vienna. 
As  Sobieski  died  in  Vota's  arms,  it  is  not  very  likely 
that  he  ever  regarded  his  affectionate  friends  as  "  greedy 
and  rapacious." 

What  Bohmer-Monod  says  regarding  Vitelleschi's 
encyclical  to  the  Society  on  the  occasion  of  his  election 


398  The  Jesuits 

is  equally  unjustifiable.  Not  only  does  the  General 
not  denounce  the  Society  for  its  degeneracy,  but  he 
explicitly  says,  "  Although  I  am  fully  aware  that 
there  is  still  in  the  body  of  the  Society  the  same  spirit 
that  animated  it  at  the  beginning,  and  moreover, 
that  this  spirit  not  only  actually  persists,  but  is  con- 
spicuously robust  and  full  of  life  and  vigor;  neverthe- 
less, as  each  one  desires  to  see  what  he  loves  absolutely 
and  in  every  respect  perfect,  we  should  all,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  strive  to  the  utmost  to  have  it 
free  from  the  slightest  stain  or  wrinkle.  To  urge  this 
is  the  sole  purpose  of  this  epistle."  Later  on  he  says, 
"There  are  three  things  which  help  us  to  conserve  this 
spirit:  prayer,  persecution  and  obedience."  The 
second,  at  least,  has  never  failed  the  Society. 

That  there  was  no  such  decadence  or  degeneracy 
later  is  placed  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt  by  a 
man  whose  integrity  cannot  for  a  single  moment  be 
questioned:  Father  John  Roothaan,  General  of  the 
Society,  who  wrote  to  all  his  brethren  throughout  the 
world  concerning  the  third  century  in  the  life  of  the 
Order.  Had  he  made  any  misstatement,  he  would 
have  been  immediately  contradicted.  As  for  his 
competency  in  the  premises  it  goes  without  saying 
that  no  one  had  better  means  than  he  for  becoming 
acquainted  with  the  condition  of  the  Society  at  that 
period.  He  testifies  as  follows: 

"  When  the  Society  began  its  third  centenary,  it 
was  flourishing  and  vigorous  as  it  always  has  been  in 
literature,  theology,  and  eloquence;  it  engaged  in  the 
education  of  youth  with  distinguished  success,  in  some 
countries  without  rivals ;  in  others  it  was  second  almost 
to  no  other  religious  order;  its  zeal  for  souls  was  exer- 
cised in  behalf  of  men  of  every  condition  of  life  not 
only  in  the  countries  of  Europe,  Catholic  and  Protestant 
alike,  but  among  the  savages  of  the  remotest  part 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        399 

of  the  world,  nor  was  the  commendation  awarded  them 
'less  than  the  fruit  they  had  gathered;  and  what  is 
most  important,  amid  the  applause  they  won  and  the 
favors  they  were  granted,  their  pursuit  of  genuine 
piety  and  holiness  was  such,  that  although  in  the  vast 
number  of  more  than  twenty  thousand  then  in  the 
Society  there  may  have  been  a  few,  a  very  few,  who  in 
their  life  and  conduct  were  not  altogether  what  they 
•should  have  been,  and  who  in  consequence  brought 
sorrow  on  that  best  of  mothers,  the  Society,  neverthe- 
less there  were  very  many  in  every  province  who  were 
conspicuous  for  sanctity  and  who  diffused  far  and  wide 
the  good  odor  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  waged  a  bitter  war 
against  error  and  vice;  it  fought  strenuously  in  defence 
of  Holy  Church  and  the  authority  of  the  See  of  Peter; 
it  displayed  a  ceaseless  vigilance  in  detecting  the  new 
errors  which  then  began  to  show  themselves,  and 
whose  object  was  to  overturn  the  thrones  of  kings 
and  princes  and  to  revolutionize  the  world;  and  it 
bent  every  one  of  its  energies  of  voice,  pen,  counsel 
and  teaching  to  refute  and  as  far  as  possible  to  destroy 
those  pernicious  doctrines.  Hence  it  was  sustained 
and  favored  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  and  by  the 
hierarchy  of  the  Church  and  its  authority  was  held 
in  the  highest  esteem  by  princes  and  people  alike.  It 
seemed  like  a  splendid  abiding-place  of  science  and 
piety  and  virtue;  an  august  temple  extending  over 
the  earth,  consecrated  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
salvation  of  souls." 

The  characterization  of  Oliva,  by  Bohmer-Monod  as 
"  a  sybarite  leading  an  indolent  life  at  the  Gesu  or  in 
his  beautiful  villa  at  Albano,"  is  nothing  else  than  an 
outrage.  Sybarites  do  not  live  till  the  age  of  eighty- 
one;  nor  are  they  summoned  to  fill  the  office  of  "  Apos- 
tolic Preacher  "  by  four  successive  Popes  —  Innocent 
X,  Alexander  VI,  Clement  IX,  and  Clement  X;  nor 


400  The  Jesuits 

do  they  write  huge  folios  of  profound  theology;  nor 
do  they  act  as  advisers  to  popes,  kings,  and  princes; 
nor  could  they  govern  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  men 
scattered  all  over  the  world,  all  of  whom  looked  up 
to  them  as  saints.  Such  in  fact  was  this  really  great 
man,  and  falsehood  could  scarcely  go  further,  than  to 
pillory  him  in  history  as  a  degraded  voluptuary.  As 
for  his  luxurious  villa,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  the 
individual  who  conceived  that  idea  of  a  Jesuit  country- 
house,  never  saw  one.  It  is  never  luxurious;  but 
always  shabby,  bare  and  poor. 

The  whole  available  income  of  the  English  province 
at  this  period  (1625-1743)  may  be  found  in  Foley's 
"  Records  "  (VII,  pt.  I,  xviii),  and  is  quoted  in  Guil- 
day's  "  English  Refugees "  (I,  156).  "  The  entire 
revenue  in  1645  for  colleges,  residences,  seminaries 
under  their  charge,  as  well  as  fourteen  centres  in 
England  and  Wales  is  recorded  at  something  like 
£3915.  This  sum  maintained  335  persons,  which 
at  the  present  rate  of  money  would  be  at  £34.10 
per  head.  In  1679  after  the  Orange  Rebellion  this 
sum  was  reduced."  What  was  true  of  the  English 
province,  may  also  in  great  measure  be  predicated  of 
the  rest,  especially  of  the  one  in  which  the  General 
resided. 

Another  curious  instance  of  this  systematic  calumnia- 
tion is  found  in  the  preface  of  a  volume  of  poems  of 
Urban  VIII,  edited  in  1727  by  a  professor  of  Oxford, 
who  was  prompted  to  publish  them,  we  are  informed, 
"  because 'the  poems  would  be  an  excellent  corrective 
of  the  obscenity  and  unbridled  licentiousness  of  the 
day."  But  while  thus  extolling  the  Pope,  this  heretical 
admirer  of  His  Holiness,  goes  on  to  say  that  the  Pontiff 
was  particularly  beloved  by  Henry  IV,  and  when  that 
monarch  was  attacked  by  an  assassin,  "  the  Jesuits, 
the  authors  of  the  execrable  deed,  were  expelled  from 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        401 

the  kingdom,  and  a  great  pillar  was  erected  to  per- 
petuate their  infamy.  Whereupon  Urban,  who  was 
then  Cardinal  Barberini,  was  sent  to  France,  and 
induced  Henry  to  destroy  the  pillar,  and  recall  the 
Jesuits  without  inflicting  any  punishment  on  them." 

For  a  person  of  ordinary  intelligence,  the  conclusion 
would  be  that  Barberini  recognized  that  the  Society 
had  been  grossly  calumniated;  if  not,  he  had  a  curious 
way  of  showing  his  affection  for  the  King  by  bringing 
back  his  deadly  enemies  and  destroying  the  pillar. 
The  author  of  this  effusion  also  fails  to  inform  his 
readers  that  Pope  Urban  VIII  was  a  pupil  of  the 
Jesuits;  that  during  all  his  life  he  was  particularly 
attached  to  the  Order;  that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  his 
pontificate  was  to  canonize  Ignatius  Loyola  and 
Francis  Xavier,  and  beatify  Francis  Borgia;  that  the 
Jesuit,  Cardinal  de  Lugo,  was  his  particular  adviser, 
and  that  in  the  reform  of  the  hymnody  of  the  Breviary, 
he  entrusted  the  work  exclusively  to  the  Jesuits.  With 
regard  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Society  from  France, 
Henry  IV  had  no  hand  in  it  whatever.  That  injustice 
is  to  be  laid  to  the  score  of  the  parliament  of  Paris 
over  which  Henry  had  no  control.  Far  from  being  an 
enemy  he  was  the  devoted  and  affectionate  friend  of 
the  Society,  as  well  he  might  be,  for  it  was  the  influence 
of  the  Spanish  Jesuit,  Cardinal  Toletus,  that  made 
it  possible  for  him  to  ascend  the  throne  of  France. 

Long  before  his  election  as  General  Oliva  had 
achieved  considerable  reputation  as  an  orator;  and, 
as  his  correspondence  shows,  he  was  held  in  the  highest 
esteem  by  many  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  for  his 
wisdom  as  a  counsellor.  Unfortunately,  however, 
nearly  all  the  trouble  that  occurred  in  his  time  originated 
in  the  courts  of  kings.  Thus  in  France,  Louis  XIV 
made  his  confessor,  Father  Frangois  Annat,  a  member 
of  his  council  on  religious  affairs,  with  the  result  that 
26 


402  The  Jesuits 

when  the  king  fell  out  with  the  Pope,  Annat's  position 
became  extremely  uncomfortable;  but  it  is  to  his 
credit  that  he  effected  a  reconciliation  between  the 
king  and  the  Pontiff.  After  Annat ,  Francois  de  Lachaise 
was  entrusted  with  the  distribution  of  the  royal 
patronage,  and,  of  course,  stirred  up  enmity  on  all 
sides.  In  Portugal,  Don  Pedro  insisted  upon  Father 
Fernandes  being  a  member  of  the  Cortes;  but  Oliva 
peremptorily  ordered  him  to  refuse  the  office.  In 
Spain,  the  queen  made  Father  Nithard,  her  confessor, 
regent  of  the  kingdom,  and,  German  though  he  was, 
grand  inquisitor  and  councillor  of  state.  When  he 
resisted,  she  appealed  to  the  Pope,  and  the  poor  man 
was  obliged  to  accept  both  appointments.  Of  course 
he  aroused  the  opposition  of  the  politicians  and  resigned. 
The  queen  then  sent  him  as  ambassador  to  Rome, 
and  on  his  arrival  there,  the  Pope  made  him  a  cardinal. 
He  wore  the  purple  for  eight  years  and  died  in  1681. 
The  saintly  Father  Claude  de  la  Colombiere,  the 
spiritual  director  of  the  Blessed  Margaret  Mary,  also 
enters  into  the  category  of  "  courtier  Jesuits."  He 
was  sent  to  England  as  confessor  of  the  young  Duchess 
of  York,  Mary  Beatrice  of  Este,  and  though  he  led 
a  very  austere  and  secluded  life  in  the  palace,  he  was 
accused  of  participation  in  the  famous  Titus  Gates 
plot,  about  which  all  England  went  mad ;  and  although 
there  was  absolutely  no  evidence  against  him,  he  was 
kept  in  jail  for  a  month,  and  in  1678  was  sent  back  to 
France. 

It  was  Father  Petre's  association  with  James  II 
of  England  that  gave  Oliva  most  trouble.  He  was 
not  the  confessor,  but  the  friend  of  the  king,  who 
had  taken  him  out  of  the  prison  to  which  Titus  Gates 
had  consigned  him.  James  wanted  to  make  him 
grand  almoner,  and  when  Oliva  protested,  Castlemain, 
the  English  ambassador  at  Rome,  was  ordered  to 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        403 

ask  the  Pope  to  make  him  a  bishop  and  a  cardinal. 
When  that  was  prevented  an  attempt  was  made  to 
give  him  a  seat  in  the  privy  councils.  Cretineau-Joly 
not  only  questions  Petre's  sincerity  in  these  various 
moves,  but  accused  the  English  provincial  of  collusion. 
Pollen,  however,  who  is  a  later  and  a  better  authority, 
insists  that,  if  we  cannot  aquit  Petre  of  all  blame, 
it  is  chiefly  because  first-hand  evidence  is  deficient. 
Petre  made  no  effort  to  defend  himself  but  the  king 
completely  exonerated  him.  The  king's  evidence, 
however,  counted  for  nothing  in  England  with  his 
Protestant  subjects.  The  feeling  against  Petre  was 
intense  and  William  of  Orange  fomented  it  for  political 
reasons,  and  the  most  extravagant  stories  were 
accepted  as  true;  such,  for  instance,  as  that  the  Jesuits 
were  going  to  take  possession  of  England ;  or  that  the 
heir-apparent  was  a  suppositious  infant.  Finally, 
when  James  fled  to  France,  Petre  followed  him  and 
remained  by  his  side  till  the  end.  "  He  was  not  a 
plotter,"  says  Pollen,  "  but  an  easy-going  English 
priest  who  was  almost  callous  to  public  opinion." 
It  is  perfectly  clear  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  foolish  policies  of  James.  On  the  contrary,  he  had 
done  everything  in  his  power  to  thwart  them.  "  Had 
I  followed  his  advice,"  James  admitted  to  Louis  XIV, 
"  I  would  have  escaped  disaster." 

A  romantic  figure  appears  at  this  time  in  the  person 
of  John  Casimir,  who  after  many  adventures  ascended 
the  throne  of  Poland.  In  spite  of  the  remonstrances 
of  his  mother  he  not  only  refused  to  dispute  the  claim 
of  his  elder  brother,  but  espoused  his  cause,  fought 
loyally  for  his  election  and  was  the  first  to  congratulate 
him  when  chosen.  He  then  withdrew  from  Poland 
and  we  find  him,  first,  as  an  officer  in  the  imperial 
army,  and  at  the  head  of  a  league  against  France. 
Afterwards,  while  in  command  of  a  fleet  in  the  Medi- 


404  The  Jesuits 

terranean,  he  was  driven  ashore  near  Marseilles  by 
a  storm;  he  was  recognized  and  kept  in  prison  for  two 
years,  but  was  finally  released  at  the  request  of  his 
brother.  In  passing  by  Loreto,  on  his  way  home,  the 
fancy  of  becoming  a  Jesuit  seized  him.  He  applied 
for  admission  and  was  received,  but  left  three  or  four 
years  afterwards,  and,  though  not  in  orders,  was  made 
a  cardinal.  When  the  news  of  his  brother's  death 
arrived,  he  returned  the  red  hat  to  the  Pope  and  set 
out  for  Poland  to  claim  the  crown,  and  simultaneously 
that  of  Sweden.  The  latter  pretence,  of  course,  meant 
war  with  Gustavus  Adolphus,  who  forthwith  invaded 
Poland,  but  Casimir  drove  him  out  and  also  expelled 
the  Prussians  from  Lithuania.  Probably  on  acount  of 
the  dissensions  in  his  own  country  which  gave  him 
occupation  enough,  he  ceased  to  urge  his  rights  to  the 
throne  of  Sweden,  and  after  some  futile  struggles 
relinquished  that  of  Poland  likewise. 

In  the  Convocation  of  Warsaw  where  he  pronounced 
his  abdication,  he  is  said  to  have  made  the  following 
utterance  which  sounds  like  a  prophecy  but  which 
may  have  been  merely  a  clever  bit  of  political  fore- 
sight. "  Would  to  God,"  he  exclaimed  "  that  I  were 
a  false  prophet,  but  I  foresee  great  disasters  for  Poland. 
The  Cossack  and  the  Muscovite  will  unite  with  the 
people  who  speak  their  language  and  will  seize  the 
greater  part  of  Lithuania.  The  frontiers  of  Greater 
Poland  will  be  possessed  by  the  House  of  Branden- 
burg; and  Prussia,  either  by  treaty  or  force  of  arms, 
will  invade  our  territory.  In  the  dismemberment 
of  our  country,  Austria  will  not  let  slip  the  chance  of 
laying  hands  on  Cracow."  John  was  the  last  repre- 
sentative of  the  House  of  Vasa.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Michael,  who  reigned  only  three  years  (1669-72) 
and  then  the  great  Sobieski  was  elected  after  he  and 
his  20,000  Poles  had  routed  an  army  of  100,000  Tatars 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        405 

—  an  exploit  which  made  him  the  country's  idol  as 
well  as  its  king. 

In  becoming  General,  Oliva  inherited  the  suffering 
inflicted  on  the  Society  by  the  English  persecutions 
which  had  been  inaugurated  by  Elizabeth  and  continued 
by  James  I.  A  lull  had  occurred  during  the  reign  of 
Charles  I,  probably  because  the  queen,  Henrietta 
Maria,  was  a  Catholic;  and  in  1634  there  were  as  many 
as  one  hundred  and  sixty  Jesuits  in  the  British  domin- 
ions; but  Cromwell  was  true  to  his  instincts,  and, 
between  the  time  of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the 
Restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  twenty-four  Catholics 
died  for  the  Faith.  Naturally,  the  Jesuits  came  in  for 
their  share.  Thus  Father  James  Latin  was  put  in 
jail  on  August  3,  1643,  and  was  never  heard  of  after- 
wards. "  From  which,"  says  O'Reilly,  "it  is  easy 
to  conjecture  his  fate."  William  Boy  ton  was  one  of 
the  victims  in  a  general  massacre  that  took  place  in 
1647,  in  the  Cashel  Cathedral;  and  two  years  after- 
wards, John  Bathe  and  Robert  Netterville  were  put 
to  death  by  the  Cromwellians  in  Drogheda.  Bathe 
was  tied  to  a  stake  and  shot,  while  Netterville,  who 
was  an  invalid,  was  dragged  from  his  bed,  beaten  with 
clubs  and  flung  out  on  the  highway.  He  died  four 
days  afterwards. 

The  Stuarts  were  restored  in  1660,  but  the  easy- 
going Charles  II  made  no  serious  effort  to  erase  the 
laws  against  Catholics  from  the  statute-book,  and 
from  time  to  time  proclamations  were  issued  ordering 
all  priests  and  Jesuits  out  of  the  realm.  Two  occasions 
especially  furnished  pretexts  for  these  expulsions. 
One  was  the  "  Great  Plague,"  and  the  other  was  the 
"  Great  Fire,"  for  both  of  which  the  Jesuits  were  held 
responsible.  No  one  knew  what  was  going  to  happen 
next,  when  there  appeared  in  England  an  individual 
to  whom  Cr6tineau-Joly  devotes  considerable  space, 


406  The  Jesuits 

but  who  receives  scant  notice  from  English  writers. 
He  announced  himself  as  Hippolyte  du  Chatelet  de 
Luzancy.  He  was  the  son  of  a  French  actress,  and 
was  under  indictment  for  forgery  in  his  native  country ; 
added  to  these  attractions,  founded  or  not,  he  claimed 
to  be  an  ex- Jesuit .  Of  course,  he  was  received  with  great 
enthusiasm  by  the  prelates  of  the  Established  Church, 
for  he  let  it  be  known  he  was  quite  willing  to  accept 
any  religious  creed  they  might  present  to  him.  The 
Government  officials  also  welcomed  him.  His  first 
exploit  was  to  accuse  Father  Saint-Germain,  the 
Duchess  of  York's  confessor,  of  entering  his  apartment 
with  a  drawn  dagger  and  threatening  to  kill  him. 
Whereupon  all  England  was  startled  and  the  House 
of  Lords  passed  a  b.ill  consigning  all  priests  and  Jesuits 
to  jail.  Saint-Germain  was  the  first  victim.  Luzancy 
was  then  called  before  the  privy  council  and  told  a 
blood  curdling  story  of  a  great  conspiracy  that  was 
being  hatched  on  the  Continent.  It  implicated  the 
king  and  the  Duke  of  York.  The  story  was  false  on 
the  face  of  it,  but  Luzancy  was  taken  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Bishop  of  London ;  he  was  given  the  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts  by  Oxford  and  was  installed  as  the 
Vicar  of  Dover  Court,  Essex.  A  most  unexpected 
defender  of  the  Society  appeared  at  this  juncture  in 
the  person  of  Antoine  Arnauld,  the  fiercest  foe  of  the 
Jesuits  in  France.  He  denounced  Luzancy  as  an 
imposter,  and  berated  the  whole  English  people  for 
accepting  the  conspiracy  myth.  His  indignation, 
however,  was  not  prompted  by  any  love  of  the  Society, 
but  because  Luzancy  claimed  to  have  lived  for  a 
considerable  time  with  the  Jansenists  and  with  Arnauld, 
in  particular,  at  Port-Royal. 

It  was  probably  the  success  achieved  by  Luzancy 
that  suggested  the  greater  extravagances  of  Titus 
Oates.  Titus  Oates  was  a  minister  of  the  Anglican 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        407 

Establishment,  and  first  signalized  himself  in  association 
with  his  father,  Samuel,  who  also  wore  the  cloth,  by 
trumping  up  an  abominable  charge  against  a  certain 
Protestant  schoolmaster,  for  which  the  father  lost 
his  living,  and  the  son  was  sent  to  prison  for  trial. 
Escaping  from  jail,  Titus  became  a  chaplain  on  a 
man-of-war,  but  was  expelled  from  the  navy  in  a 
twelve-month.  He  then  succeeded  in  being  appointed 
Protestant  chaplain  in  the  household  of  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  and  was  thus  brought  into  contact  with 
Catholics.  He  promptly  professed  to  be  converted 
and  was  baptized  on  Ash-Wednesday  1677.  The 
Jesuit  provincial  was  induced  to  send  him  to  the 
English  College  at  Valladolid,  but  the  infamous 
creature  was  expelled  before  half  a  year  had  passed. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  granted  another  trial  and  was 
admitted  to  the  Seminary  of  St.  Omers,  which 
soon  turned  him  out  of  doors. 

Coming  to  London,  he  took  up  with  Israel  Tonge  who 
is  described  as  a  "  city  divine  and  a  man  of  letters," 
and  together  they  devised  the  famous  "  Popish  Plot," 
each  claiming  the  credit  of  being  its  inventor.  It 
proposed:  first,  to  kill  "  the  Black  Bastard, "  a  designa- 
tion of  Charles  II  which  they  said  was  in  vogue  among 
Catholics.  His  majesty  was  to  be  shot  "  with  silver 
bullets  from  jointed  carbines.  ''Secondly,  two  Benedic- 
tines were  to  poison  and  stab  the  queen's  physician, 
"with  the  help,"  as  Titus  declared,  "of  four  Irish 
ruffians  who  were  to  be  hired  by  Doctor  Fogarthy." 
The  Prince  of  Orange,  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Hertford 
and  several  minor  celebrities  were  also  to  be  put  out 
of  the  way.  Thirdly,  England,  Ireland  and  all  the 
British  possessions  were  to  be  conquered  by  the  sword 
and  subjected  to  the  Romish  obedience.  To  achieve 
all  this,  the  Pope,  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  their 
confederates  were  to  send  an  Italian  bishop  to  England 


408  The  Jesuits 

to  proclaim  the  papal  programme.  Subsequently, 
Cardinal  Howard  was  to  be  papal  legate.  Father 
White,  the  Jesuit  provincial,  or  Oliva,  Father  General 
of  the  Order,  would  issue  commissions  to  generals, 
lieutenant  generals,  naval  officers.  When  the  king 
was  duly  assassinated,  the  crown  was  to  be  offered  to 
the  Duke  of  York,  after  he  had  approved  of  the 
murder  of  his  royal  brother  as  well  as  the  massacre 
of  all  his  Protestant  subjects.  Whereupon  the  duke 
himself  was  to  be  killed  and  the  French  were  to  be 
called  in.  The  Jesuit  provincial  was  to  be  made 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  so  on. 

No  more  extravagant  nonsense  could  have  been 
conceived  by  the  inhabitants  of  a  madhouse.  Never- 
theless, "all  England,"  says  Macaulay,  "was  worked 
up  into  a  frenzy  by  it.  London  was  placed  in  a  state 
of  siege.  Train  bands  were  under  arms  all  night.  Prep- 
arations were  made  to  barricade  the  main  thorough- 
fares. Patrols  marched  up  and  down  the  streets, 
cannon  were  planted  in  Whitehall.  Every  citizen 
carried  a  flail,  loaded  with  lead,  to  brain  the  popish 
assassins,  and  all  the  jails  were  filled  with  papists. 
Meantime  Gates  was  received  in  the  palaces  of  the 
great  and  hailed  everywhere  as  the  saviour  of  the 
nation."  The  result  of  it  all  was  that  sixteen  innocent 
men  were  sent  to  the  gallows,  among  them  seven 
Jesuits:  William  Ireland,  John  Gavan,  William  Har- 
court,  Anthony  Turner,  Thomas  Whitebread,  John 
Fenwick  and  David  Lewis,  besides  their  illustrious 
pupil,  Oliver  Plunket,  Archbishop  of  Armagh.  As 
the  saintly  prelate  has  been  beatified  by  the  Church 
as  a  martyr  for  thus  shedding  his  blood,  inferentially 
one  might  claim  a  similar  distinction  for  all  his  com- 
panions. On  the  list  are  one  Benedictine,  one  Francis- 
can and  six  secular  priests.  The  Earl  of  Stafford 
who  was  sentenced  like  the  rest  to  be  hanged,  drawn 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        409 

and  quartered  was  graciously  permitted  by  his  majesty 
to  be  merely  beheaded.  For  these  murders  Gates 
was  pensioned  for  life,  but  in  1682  Judge  Jeffries 
fined  him  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  scandalum 
magnatum  and  condemned  him  to  be  whipped,  pilloried, 
degraded  and  imprisoned  for  life.  "  He  has  deserved 
more  punishment,"  said  the  judge,  "  than  the  law  can 
inflict."  But  when  William  of  Orange  came  to  the 
throne  he  pardoned  the  miscreant  and  gave  him  a 
pension  of  three  hundred  pounds. 

In  his  "  Popish  Plot,"  Pollock  continually  insists, 
by  insinuation  rather  than  by  direct  assertion,  that 
Gates  was  a  novice  of  the  Society.  Thus,  we  are  told 
that  he  was  sent  to  the  "  Collegio  de  los  Ingleses  at 
Valladolid  to  nurse  into  a  Jesuit;"  and  subsequently 
"  the  expelled  novice  was  sent  to  complete  his  education 
at  St.  Omers."  But,  in  the  first  place,  a  "  Collegio  " 
at  Valladolid  or  anywhere  else  can  never  be  a  novitiate, 
for  novices  are  forbidden  all  collegiate  study;  secondly, 
St.  Omers  in  France  was  a  boys'  school  and  nothing 
else;  thirdly,  the  description  of  Oates  by  the  Jesuit 
Father  Warner  absolutely  precludes  any  possibility  of 
his  ever  having  been  admitted  as  a  novice  or  even  as 
a  remotely  prospective  candidate. 

Warner's  pen  picture  merits  reproduction.  Its 
general  lines  are:  "  Mentis  in  eo  summa  stupiditas; 
lingua  balbutiens;  sermo  e  trivio;  vox  stridula,  et 
cantillans,  plorantis  quam  loquentis  similior.  Memoria 
fallax,  prius  dicta  numquam  fideliter  reddens;  frons 
contracta;  oculi  parvi  et  in  occiput  retracti;  facies 
plana,  in  medio  lands  sive  disci  instar  compressa; 
prominentibus  hie  inde  genis  rubicundus  nasus;  os 
in  ipso  vultus  centro,  mentum  reliquam  faciem  prope 
totam  aequans;  caput  vix  corporis  trunco  extans,  in 
pectus  declive;  reliqua  corporis  hisce  respondentia ; 
monstro  quam  homini  similiora."  In  English  this 


410  The  Jesuits 

means  that  the  lovely  Gates  "  was  possessed  of  a 
mind  in  which  stupidity  was  supremely  conspicuous,  a 
tongue  that  stuttered  in  vulgar  speech;  a  voice  that 
was  shrill,  whining,  and  more  of  a  moan  than  an 
articulate  utterance;  a  faulty  memory  that  could  not 
recall  what  had  been  said;  a  narrow  forehead,  small 
eyes,  sunk  deep  in  his  head ;  a  flat  face  depressed  in  the 
middle  like  a  plate  or  a  dish;  a  red  nose  set  between 
puffy  cheeks;  a  mouth  so  much  in  the  centre  of  his 
countenance  that  the  chin  was  almost  as  large  as  the 
rest  of  the  features;  his  head  bent  forward  on  his 
chest;  and  the  rest  of  his  body  after  the  same  build, 
making  him  more  of  a  monster  than  a  man."  If  the 
English  provincial  could  for  a  moment  have  ever 
dreamed  of  admitting  such  an  abortion  into  the 
Society,  he  would  have  verified  his  name  of  Father 
Strange.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  natural  for  the 
fanatics  of  that  time  to  adopt  Dates. 

During  Oliva's  administration,  and  in  spite  of  his 
protests,  Father  Giovanni  Salerno  and  Francisco 
Cienf uegos  were  made  cardinals ;  under  Peter  the  Great 
a  few  Jesuits  were  admitted  to  Russia,  but  the  terrible 
Czar  was  fickle  and  drove  out  his  guests  soon  after. 
There  was  also  some  missionary  success  in  Persia, 
where  400,000  Nestorians  were  converted  between  the 
years  1656  and  1681,  the  date  of  Oliva's  death. 

Charles  de  Noyelle,  a  Belgian,  was  now  appointed 
Vicar;  and  at  the  congregation  which  assembled  in 
1682  he  was  elected  General,  receiving  every  vote 
except  his  own.  He  was  then  sixty-seven  years  old. 
His  first  task  was  to  adjust  the  difficulty  between 
Innocent  XI  and  Louis  XIV  on  the  question  of  the 
regale,  or  the  royal  right  to  administer  the  revenues  of 
a  certain  number  of  vacant  abbeys  and  episcopal  sees 
claimed  by  the  kings  of  France.  Such  invasions  of 
the  Church-rights  by  the  State  were  common  extending 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        411 

as  far  back  as  the  times  of  St.  Bernard.  By  1608  the 
French  parliament  had  extended  this  prerogative  to 
the  whole  of  France;  but  the  upright  Henry  IV,  half 
Protestant  though  he  was,  refused  to  accept  it ;  whereas 
later  on  the  Catholic  Louis  XIV  had  no  scruples  about 
the  matter,  and  issued  an  edict  to  that  effect.  The 
Pope  protested  and  refused  to  send  the  Bulls  to  the 
royal  nominees  for  the  vacant  dioceses,  with  the 
result  that  at  one  time  there  were  thirty  sees  in  France 
without  a  bishop.  Only  two  prelates  stood  out  against 
the  king  and,  strange  to  say,  one  of  them  was  Caulet, 
the  Jansenist  Bishop  of  Pamiers;  who,  stranger  still, 
lived  on  intimate  terms  with  the  Jesuits. 

So  far  the  Jesuits  had  kept  out  of  the  controversy, 
but,  unfortunately,  Father  Louis  Maimbourg  published 
a  book  in  support  of  the  king,  and,  eminently 
distinguished  though  he  was  in  the  field  of  letters, 
especially  in  history,  he  was  promptly  expelled  from  the 
Society.  The  king  angrily  protested  and  ordered 
Maimbourg  not  to  obey,  but  the  General  stood  firm 
and  Maimbourg  severed  his  connection  with  his 
former  brethren.  As  substantially  all  the  bishops 
were  arrayed  against  the  Pope,  copies  of  the  Bull 
against  Louis  were  sent  to  the  Jesuit  provincials  for 
distribution.  The  situation  was  most  embarrassing, 
but  before  the  copies  were  delivered,  they  were  seized 
by  the  authorities.  In  retaliation  for  the  Bull,  the  king 
took  the  principality  of  Benevento,  which  was  part  of 
the  patrimony  of  the  Church,  and  thus  drew  upon 
himself  a  sentence  of  excommunication.  As  this 
document  would  also  have  been  refused  by  the  bishops, 
it  was  entrusted  to  a  Jesuit  Father  named  Dez,  who 
was  on  his  way  from  Rome  to  France. 

For  a  Frenchman  to  be  the  bearer  of  a  Bull  excom- 
municating his  king,  especially  such  a  king  as  Louis 
XIV,  was  not  without  danger;  but  Dez  was  equal  to 


412  The  Jesuits 

the  task.  He  directed  his  steps  in  such  a  leisurely 
fashion  towards  Paris  that  his  brethren  in  Italy  had 
time  to  appeal  to  the  Pope  to  withdraw  the  decree. 
Fortunately  the  Pope  yielded,  and  the  excommuni- 
cation was  never  pronounced;  much  to  the  relief  of 
both  sides.  It  would  probably  have  ended  in  a  schism ; 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  provoked  the  famous  Assembly 
of  the  Clergy  of  1682  which  formulated  the  Four 
Articles  of  the  Gallican  Church.  These  Articles  were 
then  approved  by  the  king  and  ordered  to  be  taught 
in  all  theological  schools  of  France  —  a  proceeding 
which  again  angered  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  who  refused 
to  confirm  any  of  the  royal  nominees  for  the  vacant 
bishoprics.  The  contest  now  became  bitter,  and  it 
is  said  that  Father  Lachaise,  whether  prompted  by 
the  king  or  not,  wrote  to  the  General  asking  him  to 
plead  with  the  Pope  to  transmit  the  Bulls.  That 
brought  down  the  Papal  displeasure  not  only  on 
Lachaise  personally  but  on  all  the  Jesuits  of  France. 

In  1689  the  Pope  died,  and  the  king,  who  was  by  this 
time  alarmed  at  the  lengths  to  which  he  had  gone, 
suggested  that  each  of  the  bishops  whom  he  had  named 
should  write  a  personal  letter  to  the  new  Pontiff, 
Alexander  VIII,  disclaiming  the  acts  of  the  Assembly 
of  the  Clergy  of  1682.  Subsequently,  the  king  himself 
sent  an  expression  of  regret  for  having  made  the 
Four  Articles  obligatory  on  the  whole  kingdom;  he 
thus  absolutely  annulled  the  proceedings  of  the  famous 
gathering.  The  regale,  however,  was  and  is  still 
maintained  as  a  right  in  France  whether  it  happens 
to  be  monarchical  or  republican.  At  present,  it  holds 
all  church  property  but  has  nothing  to  say  about 
episcopal  appointments. 

In  1685  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was 
issued.  It  cancelled  all  the  privileges  granted  to  the 
Huguenots  by  Henry  IV,  and  Protestants  were  given 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        413 

the  choice  either  of  renouncing  their  creed  or  leaving 
the  country.  The  result  was  disastrous  industrially, 
as  France  was  thus  deprived  of  a  great  number  of 
skilled  workmen  and  well-to-do  merchants;  in  addition 
fictitious  conversions  were  encouraged.  As  usual,  the 
Jesuits  were  blamed  for  this  measure  by  the  Calvinists 
and  Jansenists,  and  in  retaliation  the  states  general  of 
Holland  imposed  the  most  outrageous  taxes  on  the 
forty-five  establishments  which  the  Society  possessed 
in  that  little  country,  hoping  thereby  to  compass  their 
ruin.  But  the  sturdy  Netherlanders  drew  up  a  formal 
protest  and  demanded  from  the  government  an  ex- 
planation of  why  men  of  any  religious  views,  even 
foreigners,  should  find  protection  in  Holland  while 
native  Dutchmen  were  so  unfairly  treated.  The  claim 
was  allowed,  but  the  antagonism  of  the  government, 
inspired  as  it  was  by  William  of  Orange,  who  recognized 
that  hostility  to  the  Order  was  a  good  recommendation 
to  his  English  subjects,  was  not  laid  aside.  It  was 
vigorous  twenty  years  later. 

The  Vicar-Apostolic  of  Holland,  who  was  titular 
Archbishop  of  Sebaste,  had  long  been  scandalizing  the 
faithful  by  his  heretical  teachings.  He  was  finally 
removed  by  the  Holy  See;  but  against  this  act  the 
government  of  the  states  general  protested,  and  ordered 
the  Jesuits  to  write  to  Rome  and  ask  for  the  rehabili- 
tation of  the  vicar.  The  plea  was  that  by  doing  so, 
they  would  restore  peace  to  the  country  which  was 
alleged  to  have  been  very  much  disturbed  by  the 
Papal  document.  The  refusal  to  do  so,  they  were 
warned,  would  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  hostility  to 
the  government.  De  Bruyn,  the  superior,  wrote  to 
the  Pope  in  effect,  but  instead  of  asking  for  the  vicar's 
rehabilitation,  he  thanked  the  Holy  Father  for  re- 
moving him.  The  consequence  was  that  on  June  20, 
1705,  three  months  after  they  had  been  told  to  write, 


414  The  Jesuits 

the  forty-five  Jesuit  houses  in  Holland  were  closed, 
and  the  seventy-four  Fathers  took  the  road  of  exile, 
branded  as  disturbers  of  the  public  peace. 

It  was  during  the  Generalate  of  Father  de  Noyelle, 
that  Innocent  XI  is  said  to  have  determined  to  suppress 
the  Society  by  closing  the  novitiates.  This  is  admitted, 
even  by  Pollen,  and  is  flourished  in  the  face  of  the 
Jesuits  by  their  enemies  as  a  mark  of  the  disfavor  in 
which  they  are  held  by  that  illustrious  Pontiff.  The 
assertion  is  based  on  a  Roman  document,  the  con- 
demnatory clause  of  which  runs  as  follows:  "  The 
Father  General  and  the  whole  Society  should  be  for- 
bidden in  the  future  to  receive  any  novices,  or  to 
admit  anyone  to  simple  or  solemn  vows,  under  pain 
of  nullity  or  other  punishment,  according  to  the  wish 
of  His  Holiness,  until  they  effectually  submit  and 
prove  that  they  have  submitted  to  the  decree  issued 
with  regard  to  the  aforesaid  missions."  Cretineau- 
Joly  or  his  editor  points  out  in  a  note  that  this  is  not 
a  papal  document  at  all.  The  Pope  would  never 
address  himself  as  "  His  Holiness,"  nor  tell  himself 
what  he  should  do.  It  was  simply  an  utterance  of 
the  Propaganda,  in  which  body  the  Society  did  not 
lack  enemies.  It  was  dated  1684,  and  in  the  very  next 
year  its  application  was  restricted  by  the  Propaganda 
itself  to  the  provinces  of  Italy.  It  was  never  approved 
by  the  Holy  See,  and  when  it  was  presented  to  Innocent 
XI  under  still  another  form,  namely  to  prevent  the 
reception  of  novices  in  Eastern  Asia,  he  flatly  re- 
jected it. 

Louis  XIV  had  lost  the  Netherlands  to  Spain  and 
in  a  fit  of  childish  petulance  he  insisted  that  the  Jesuit 
province  there  on  account  of  being  half  Walloon 
should  be  annexed  to  the  French  assistancy.  When 
this  demand  was  disregarded  he  ordered  the  French 
Jesuits  who  were  in  Rome  to  return  to  France,  as 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        415 

he  proposed  to  make  the  French  part  of  the  Society 
independent  of  the  General.  He  was  finally  placated 
by  a  promise  that  men  who  had  been  superiors  in 
France  proper,  should  be  chosen  to  fill  similar  positions 
in  the  Walloon  district.  It  was  a  very  silly  performance. 

Tirso  Gonzalez,  a  Spaniard,  was  chosen  as  the 
successor  of  de  Noyelle  in  1687.  He  had  taught 
theology  at  Salamanca  for  ten  years,  and  had  been 
a  missionary  for  eleven.  He  is  famous  for  his  an- 
tagonism to  the  doctrine  known  as  Probabilism,  as  he 
advocated  Probabiliorism.  Probabilism  is  that  system 
of  morals  according  to  which,  in  every  doubt  that  con- 
cerns merely  the  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness  of  an  action, 
it  is  permissible  to  follow  a  solidly  probable  opinion, 
in  favor  of  liberty,  even  though  the  opposing  view  is 
more  probable.  This  freedom  to  act,  however,  does  not 
hold  when  the  validity  of  the  sacraments,  the  attain- 
ment of  an  obligatory  end,  or  the  established  rights  of 
another  are  concerned.  Gonzalez  maintained  with 
considerable  bitterness  that,  even  apart  from  the  three 
exceptions,  it  was  permitted  to  follow  only  the  more 
probable  opinion  —  a  doctrine  which  is  now  almost 
universally  rejected. 

During  the  Generalate  of  Oliva,  Gonzalez  had  written 
a  book  on  the  subject,  which  was  twice  turned  down 
by  all  the  censors;  whereupon,  he  appealed  to  Pope 
Innocent  XI  in  1680  asking  him  to  forbid  the  teaching 
of  Probabilism.  The  Pope  did  not  go  so  far,  but  he 
permitted  it  to  be  attacked.  Of  course,  Gonzalez 
strictly  speaking  had  a  right  to  appeal  to  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  but  it  was  a  most  unusual  performance  for 
a  Jesuit,  especially  as  the  doctrine  in  question  was 
only  a  matter  of  opinion,  with  all  the  great  authorities 
of  the  Society  against  him.  It  must  have  been  with 
dismay  that  his  brethren  heard  of  his  election  as 
General  by  the  thirteenth  general  congregation.  It 


416  The  Jesuits 

appears  certain,  says  Brucker  in  his  history  of  the 
Society  (p.  529),  that  on  the  eve  of  the  election  the 
Pope  expressed  his  opinion  that  Gonzalez  was  the 
most  available  candidate.  That  evidently  determined 
the  suffrage,  though  Gonzalez  seems  to  have  had 
no  experience  as  an  administrator. 

One  of  the  first  things  the  general  did  was  to  start 
a  campaign  against  the  doctrines  of  Gallicanism,  as 
formulated  in  the  famous  Assembly  of  1682,  which 
every  one  thought  was  already  dead  and  buried. 
His  friend,  Pope  Innocent  XI,  died  in  August,  1689, 
and  his  successor  Alexander  VIII  ordered  Gonzalez  to 
call  in  all  the  copies  that  had  been  printed.  In  1691 
Gonzalez  began  to  print  his  book  which  Oliva  had 
formerly  forbidden.  It  was  run  through  the  press  in 
Germany  without  the  knowledge  of  his  assistants; 
copies  appeared  in  1694,  and  threw  the  Society  into 
an  uproar,  especially  as  Gonzalea's  appeared  on  the 
title  page  as  "  Former  Professor  of  Salamanca  and 
actual  General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  Nevertheless, 
at  the  general  congregation  which  met  in  1697  Father 
Gonzalez  was  treated  with  the  profoundest  consider- 
ation. Not  a  word  was  uttered  about  his  doctrine 
and  assistants  who  were  most  acceptable  to  him  were 
elected.  Although  a  few  more  probabiliorists  sub- 
sequently appeared,  the  Society,  nevertheless,  remained 
true  to  the  teaching  of  Suarez,  Lugo,  Laymann,  and 
their  school. 

A  quarrel  then  arose  between  Don  Pedro  II  of 
Portugal  and  Cardinal  Conti,  the  papal  nuncio,  about 
the  revenues  of  certain  estates.  The  question  was 
referred  to  Gonzalez,  who  decided  in  favor  of  the 
Pope,  whereupon  Pedro's  successor,  John  V,  closed  all 
the  Jesuit  novitiates  in  Portugal  and  banished  some 
of  the  Fathers  from  the  country.  Gonzalez  died  before 
this  affair  was  settled.  He  passed  away  on  October 


From  Vitelieschi  to  Ricci        417 

27,  1705,  in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age.  He 
had  been  a  Jesuit  for  sixty-three  years,  and  during 
nineteen  years  occupied  the  post  of  General. 

Father  Michael  Angelo  Tamburini  was  the  fourteenth 
General;  his  tenure  of  office  extended  from  January  30, 
1706,  till  his  death  on  February  28,  1730.  He  was 
a  native  of  Modena,  and  had  filled  several  important 
offices  with  credit,  before  he  was  chosen  to  undertake 
the  great  responsibility  of  governing  the  entire  Order, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-eight.  The  troubles  in  France  were 
increasing.  For  although  the  implacable  leaders  of 
the  Jansenist  party,  Arnauld  and  Nicole,  had  dis- 
appeared from  the  scene  —  Arnauld  dying  at  Malines, 
a  bitter  old  man  of  eighty-three,  and  Nicole  soon 
following  him  to  the  grave  —  yet  the  antagonism 
created  by  them,  against  the  Society  still  persisted  and 
was  being  reinforced  by  the  atheists,  who  now  began 
to  dominate  France. 

Quesnel,  who  succeeded  Arnauld  and  Nicole,  wrote 
a  book  entitled  "  Moral  Reflections  on  the  New 
Testament  ",  the  style  of  which  quite  captivated  de 
Noailles,  Bishop  of  Chalons-sur-Marne,  and  without  ad- 
verting to  its  Jansenism  he  gave  it  his  hearty  approval. 
Later  however,  when  he  became  Archbishop  of  Paris,  he 
condemned  another  Jansenist  publication  whose  doc- 
trine was  identical  with  the  one  he  had  previously 
recommended;  whereupon  an  anonymous  pamphlet 
calling  attention  to  the  contradiction  was  published; 
in  it  the  cardinal  was  made  to  appear  in  the  very 
unpleasant  attitude  of  stultifying  himself  in  the  eyes 
of  the  learned.  He  accused  the  Jesuits  of  the  pamphlet, 
whereas,  it  was  the  work  of  their  enemies,  and  was 
written  precisely  to  turn  him  against  the  Society. 
The  situation  became  worse  when  other  members  of 
the  hierarchy  began  to  comment  on  his  approval  of 
the  Jansenistic  publication,  and  he  was  exasperated 
27 


418  The  Jesuits 

to  such  an  extent  that  he  suspended  every  Jesuit  in 
the  diocese.  The  Jansenists  were  naturally  jubilant 
over  their  success,  and  began  to  look  forward  hope- 
fully to  the  approaching  death  of  Louis  XIV,  who  had 
never  wavered  in  his  defense  of  the  Society.  His 
successor,  the  dissolute  Philip  of  Orleans,  could  be 
reckoned  on  as  their  aid,  they  imagined,  but  they  were 
disappointed.  He  began  by  refusing  their  petition  to 
revoke  the  university  rights  of  the  Jesuits  and  although 
he  dissolved  all  the  sodalities  in  the  army,  he  lodged  a 
number  of  Jansenists  in  jail  for  an  alleged  conspiracy 
against  the  government,  a  measure  which  they,  of 
course,  attributed  to  the  machinations  of  the  Society. 

It  was  during  this  Generalate  that  the  Paraguay 
missions  reached  their  highest  degree  of  efficiency. 
In  a  single  year  no  fewer  than  seventy-seven  mission- 
aries left  Europe  to  co-operate  in  the  great  work. 
Meantime,  Francis  Hieronymo  and  Anthony  Baldinucci 
were  astonishing  Italy  by  their  apostolic  work,  as  was 
Manuel  Padial  in  Spain  —  all  three  of  whom  were 
inscribed  later  on  the  Church's  roll  of  honor.  Finally, 
the  canonization  of  Aloysius  and  Stanislaus  Kostka 
along  with  the  beatification  of  John  Francis  Regis  put 
the  stamp  of  the  Church's  most  solemn  approval  on 
the  Institute  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  Father  Tamburini 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty-two.  He  had  lived  sixty -five 
years  as  a  Jesuit;  and  at  his  death,  the  Society  had 
thirty-seven  provinces  with  twenty-four  houses  of 
professed,  612  colleges,  340  residences,  59  novitiates, 
200  mission  stations,  and  157  seminaries.  Assuredly, 
it  was  doing  something  for  the  Church  of  God. 

Francis  Retz,  a  Bohemian,  was  the  next  General. 
His  election,  which  took  place  on  March  7,  1730,  was 
unanimous;  and  his  administration  of  twenty  years 
gave  the  Society  a  condition  of  tranquillity  such  as  it 
had  never  enjoyed  in  its  entire  history.  Perhaps, 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        419 

however,  there  would  have  been  a  shade  of  sorrow  if 
the  future  of  one  of  the  Jesuits  of  those  days  could  have 
been  foreseen.  Father  Raynal  left  the  Society  in 
1747  and  joined  the  Sulpicians.  Subsequently  he 
apostatized  from  the  Faith,  became  the  intimate  asso- 
ciate of  Rousseau,  Diderot  and  other  atheists  and  died 
at  an  advanced  age  apparently  impenitent.  Before 
Father  Retz  expired,  two  more  provinces  had  been 
added  to  the  thirty-seven  already  existing;  the  col- 
leges had  increased  to  669;  the  seminaries  to  176  and 
there  were  on  the  registers  22,589  members  of  whom 
11,293  were  already  priests.  During  this  period 
several  great  personages,  who  were  to  have  much  to  do 
with  the  fortunes  of  the  Society,  began  to  assume 
prominence  in  the  political  world.  They  were  Fred- 
erick the  Great  of  Prussia,  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria, 
the  Due  de  Choiseul  in  France,  and  Carvalho,  Marquis 
de  Pombal  in  Portugal. 

Eight  months  after  the  death  of  Father  Retz  which 
occurred  on  November  19,  1750,  the  Society  chose  for 
its  General  Ignatius  Visconti,  a  Milanese.  He  was  at 
that  time  sixty-nine  years  of  age  and  survived  only 
two  years.  He  was  succeeded  by  Father  Louis  Cen- 
turione,  who,  besides  the  burden  of  his  seventy  years 
of  life,  had  to  endure  the  pain  of  constant  physical 
ailments.  In  two  years  time,  on  October  2,  1757, 
he  breathed  his  last,  and  on  the  2ist  of  May  following, 
Lorenzo  Ricci  was  elected.  According  to  Huonder, 
the  choice  was  unanimous,  but  the  digest  of  the 
nineteenth  congregation  states  that  he  was  elected  by 
a  very  large  majority. 

Who  was  Ricci?  He  was  a  Florentine  of  noble 
blood,  and  was  born  on  August  3,  1703.  He  was, 
therefore,  fifty-three  years  of  age  when  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  Society,  whose  destruction  he  was  to 
witness  fifteen  years  later.  From  his  earliest  youth,  he 


420  The  Jesuits 

had  attracted  attention  by  his  unusual  intellectual 
ability  as  well  as  by  his  fervent  piety.  He  had  been 
professor  of  Rhetoric  at  the  colleges  of  Siena  and  Rome 
to  which  only  brilliant  men  were  assigned,  and  at 
the  end  of  his  studies  he  was  designated  for  what  is 
called  the  "  Public  Act,"  that  is  to  say  an  all-day 
defense  of  a  series  of  theses  covering  the  entire  range 
of  philosophy  and  theology.  He  subsequently  taught 
theology  for  eleven  years  and  was  spiritual  father  at  the 
Roman  College.  The  latter  office  brought  him  in  con- 
tact with  the  most  distinguished  prelates  of  the  Church, 
who  chose  him  as  the  guide  of  their  consciences.  In 
1755  Father  Centurione  called  him  to  the  secretaryship 
of  the  Society,  and  he  was  occupying  that  post  when 
elected  General.  The  regret  is  very  often  expressed 
that  a  General  of  the  stamp  of  Aquaviva  was  not 
chosen  at  that  time;  one  who  might  have  been  equal 
to  the  shock  that  was  to  be  met.  Hence,  the  choice 
of  a  man  who  had  never  been  a  superior  in  any  minor 
position  is  sometimes  denounced  as  fatuous.  One 
distinguished  enemy  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  when 
he  heard  the  result  of  the  balloting:  "  Ricci!  Ricci! 
Now  we  have  them." 

It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  the  battle 
which  brought  out  Aquaviva's  powers  bears  no  com- 
parison with  that  which  confronted  Father  Ricci. 
Against  Aquaviva  were  ranged  only  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  a  small  number  of  recalcitrant  Spanish 
Jesuits,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  Philip  II.  But 
in  the  first  place,  the  Spanish  Inquisition  had  no 
standing  in  Rome ;  in  the  second,  the  Jesuits  who  were 
in  opposition  had  all  of  them  a  strain  in  their  blood, 
which  their  fellow  countrymen  disliked;  and,  finally, 
though  Philip  II  would  have  liked  to  have  had  his 
hand  on  the  machinery  of  the  Society  he  was  at  all 
times  a  staunch  Catholic.  Against  this  coalition, 


From  Vitelleschi  to  Ricci        421 

Aquaviva  had  with  him  as  enthusiastic  supporters  all 
the  Catholic  princes  of  Germany  and  they  contributed 
largely  to  his  triumph.  Father  Ricci,  on  the  contrary, 
found  arrayed  against  the  Society  the  so-called  Catholic 
kings:  Joseph  I  of  Portugal;  Charles  III  of  Spain  and 
Joseph  II  of  Austria,  all  of  them  absolutely  in  the 
power  of  Voltairean  ministers  like  Pombal,  de  Choiseul, 
Aranda,  Tanucci  and  Kaunitz,  who  were  in  league, 
not  only  to  destroy  the  Jesuits,  but  to  wreck  the  Church. 
The  suppression  of  the  Society  was  only  an  incident 
in  the  fight;  it  had  to  be  swept  out  of  the  way  at  any 
cost.  A  thousand  Aquavivas  would  not  have  been  able 
to  avert  it.  Two  Popes  succumbed  in  the  struggle. 

Carayon,  in  his  "  Documents  inedits,"  describes 
Father  Ricci  as  "  timid,  shy,  and  lacking  in  initiative" 
Among  the  instances  of  his  timidity,  there  is  quoted 
his  reprehension  of  Father  Pinto,  who  had  of  his  own 
accord  asked  Frederick  II  to  pronounce  himself  as  a 
defender  of  the  Society.  Of  course,  he  was  sternly 
reproved  by  Father  Ricci  and  properly  so,  for  one 
cannot  imagine  a  more  incongruous  situation  than 
that  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  on  its  knees  to  the  half- 
infidel  friend  of  Voltaire,  entreating  him  to  vouch  for 
the  virtue  and  orthodoxy  of  the  Order.  Frederick 
himself  was  very  much  amused  by  the  proposition. 

In  any  case,  the  fight  was  too  far  advanced  to  afford 
any  hope  of  its  being  checked.  Eight  years  before 
that  time,  Pombal  had  made  arrangements  with  Spain 
to  drive  the  Jesuits  out  of  Paraguay,  and  had  extorted 
from  the  dying  Benedict  XIV  the  appointment  of 
Saldanha  to  investigate  the  Jesuits  of  Portugal. 
Indeed,  it  was  soon  discovered  that  Pombal's  per- 
formances were  only  a  part  of  the  general  plot  to 
destroy  the  Society  and  the  Church. 

As  soon  as  Benedict's  successor  ascended  the  papal 
throne,  Father  Ricci  laid  a  petition  before  him  repre- 


422  The  Jesuits 

senting  the  distress  and  injury  inflicted  on  the  Society 
by  what  was  going  on  in  Portugal.  Crimes  which  had 
no  foundation  were  attributed  to  it,  and  all  of  the 
Fathers,  whether  guilty  or  not,  had  been  suspended 
from  their  priestly  functions.  The  petition  could 
not  have  been  more  humble  or  more  just,  but  it  brought 
down  a  storm  on  the  head  of  Father  Ricci.  The  sad 
feature  of  it  was  that,  although  it  was  intended  to  be  an 
absolutely .  secret  communication,  it  was  immediately 
circulated  with  notes  throughout  Europe,  and  a  fierce 
votum,  or  protest,  was  issued  against  it  by  Cardinal 
Passionei,  who  denounced  it  as  an  absolutely  untruth- 
ful and  subtle  plea  to  induce  the  Holy  Father  to  hand 
over  the  rest  of  his  flock  to  the  ferocious  wolves  (the 
Jesuits).  The  cardinal  stated  that  the  King  of  Portu- 
gal had  complained  of  the  Jesuits,  and  that  Cardinal 
Saldanha  was  a  person  capable  of  obtaining  the  best 
information  about  the  case,  and  was  absolutely  with- 
out bias  or  animosity  for  any  party,  besides  being 
known  for  his  ecclesiastical  zeal  and  his  submission 
to  the  head  of  the  Church. 

Far  from  being  influenced  by  this  utterance  of 
Passionei,  Pope  Clement  XIII  appointed  a  congrega- 
tion to  examine  the  question ;  the  report  was  favorable  to 
the  Society,  so  that  Pombal  was  momentarily  checked. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  very  clear  that  the  battle 
was  not  won.  A  false  report  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  congregation  was  published,  and  although  the 
Pope  ordered  it  to  be  burned  by  the  public  executioner, 
it  was,  nevertheless,  an  open  proclamation  that  the 
enemies  of  the  Society  were  willing  to  go  to  any  lengths 
to  gain  their  point.  Portuguese  gold  flowed  into 
Rome  and  Mgr.  Bottari  was  employed  to  revive  all 
the  ancient  calumnies  against  the  Society.  In  a 
short  time,  he  produced  a  work  called  "Reflections  of  a 
Portuguese  on  the  Memorial  presented  to  His  Holiness 


From  Viteileschi  to  Ricci        423 

Clement  XIII  by  the  Jesuits."  When  there  was 
question  of  putting  the  book  on  the  Index,  Almada, 
the  Portuguese  ambassador  declared  that  if  such  a 
proceeding  were  resorted  to  Portugal  would  secede 
from  the  Church.  Furthermore,  when  the  Papal 
Secretary  of  State,  Achito,  wrote  a  very  mild  and 
prudent  letter  to  the  nuncio  in  Lisbon,  instructing  him 
to  let  the  king  know  that  the  petition  of  the  Jesuits 
was  very  humble  and  submissive,  he  was  denounced  as 
issuing  a  declaration  of  war  against  Portugal.  Mean- 
time, the  author  of  the  "  Reflections  "  continued  to 
pour  out  other  libellous  publications  in  Rome  itself, 
and  Papal  prohibitions  were  powerless  to  prevent  him. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CONDITIONS  BEFORE  THE  CRASH 

State  of  the  Society  —  The  Seven  Years  War  —  Political  Changes  — 
Rulers  of  Spain,  Portugal,  Naples,  France  and  Austria  —  Febronius  — 
Sentiments  of  the  Hierarchy  —  Popes  Benedict  XIV;  Clement  XIII; 
Clement  XIV, 

JUST  before  its  suppression,  the  Society  had  about 
23,000  members.  It  was  divided  into  forty-two 
provinces  in  which  there  were  24  houses  of  professed 
fathers,  669  colleges,  61  novitiates,  335  residences  and 
273  mission  stations.  Taking  this  grand  total  in 
detail,  there  were  in  Italy  3,622  Jesuits,  about  one- 
half  of  whom  were  priests.  They  possessed  178 
houses.  The  provinces  of  Spain  had  2,943  members 
(1,342  priests)  and  158  houses;  Portugal,  861  members 
(384  priests),  49  houses;  France,  3,350  members 
(1,763  priests),  158  houses;  Germany,  5,340  members 
(2,558  priests),  307  houses;  Poland,  2,359  members; 
Flemish  Belgium,  542  members  (23 2  priests),  30  houses; 
French  Belgian,  471  members  (266  priests),  25  houses; 
England,  274  members;  and  Ireland,  28.  Their  missions 
were  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  In  Hindostan,  de  Nobili, 
and  de  Britto's  work  was  being  carried  on;  in  Madura, 
there  were  forty-seven  missionaries.  The  establish- 
ments in  Persia  extended  to  Ispahan  and  counted 
400,000  Catholics.  Syria,  the  Levant  and  the  Maronites 
were  also  being  looked  after.  Although  Christianity 
had  been  crushed  as  early  as  1644,  the  name  of 
the  province  of  Japan  was  preserved,  and  in 
1760  it  counted  fifty-seven  members.  There  were 
fifty-four  Portuguese  Fathers  attached  to  China  at 
the  time  of  the  Suppression,  and  an  independent  French 

424 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      425 

mission  had  been  organized  at  Pekin  with  twenty-three 
members  mostly  priests.  In  South  America,  the 
whole  territory  had  been  divided  into  missions,  and 
there  were  445  Jesuits  in  Brazil,  with  146  in  the  vice- 
province  of  Maranhao.  The  Paraguay  province  con- 
tained 564  members  of  whom  385  were  priests;  they 
had  113,716  Indians  in  their  care.  In  Mexico,  which 
included  Lower  California,  there  were  572  Jesuits, 
who  were  devoting  themselves  to  122,000  Indians. 
New  Granada  had  193  missionaries;  Chili  had  242; 
Peru,  526;  and  Ecuador,  209. 

In  the  United  States,  they  were  necessarily  very 
few,  on  account  of  political  conditions.  At  the  time 
of  the  Suppression,  they  numbered  only  nine,  two  of 
whom  Robert  Molyneux  and  John  Bolton  survived 
until  the  complete  restoration  of  the  Society.  The 
French  had  missions  in  Guiana,  Hayti  and  Martinique; 
and  in  Canada,  the  work  inaugurated  by  Brebeuf 
among  the  Hurons,  was  kept  up  among  the  Iroquois, 
Algonquins,  Abenakis,  Crees,  Ottawas, '  Miamis  and 
other  tribes  in  Illinois,  Alabama  and  Lower  Mississippi. 
At  the  time  of  the  Suppression  there  were  fifty-five 
Jesuits  in  Canada  and  Louisiana. 

This  world-wide  activity  synchronized  with  the 
Seven  Years  War,  which  was  to  change  the  face  of 
the  earth  politically  and  religiously.  The  unscrupulous 
energy  of  Lord  Clive  had,  previous  to  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities,  given  Bombay,  Madras,  Calcutta  and  the 
Carnatic  to  England.  Before  war  had  been  pro- 
claimed, Boscawen,  who  was  sent  to  Canada,  had 
captured  two  French  warships  and  the  feeble  protest  of 
France  was  answered  by  the  seizure  of  three  hundred 
other  vessels,  manned  by  10,000  seamen  and  carrying 
cargoes  estimated  to  be  worth  30,000,000  francs.  In 
1757  Frederick  the  Great  won  the  battle  of  Rosbach 
against  the  French;  and  in  the  same  year  triumphed 


426  The  Jesuits 

over  the  imperial  forces.  In  1759  he  defeated  the 
Russians,  only  to  meet  similar  reverses  in  turn;  but 
in  1760  when  all  seemed  lost,  Russia  withdrew  from 
the  fight  and  became  Frederick's  friend.  In  1758 
France  scored  some  victories  in  Germany,  but  in  1762 
was  completely  crushed  and  consented  to  what  a 
French  historian  describes  as  "a  'shameful  peace." 
Quebec  fell  in  1759,  and  Vaudreuil  capitulated  at 
Montreal  in  1760. 

Peace  was  finally  made  by  the  treaties  of  Paris  and 
Hubertsburg  in  1763,  in  virtue  of  which,  France 
surrendered  all  her  conquests  of  German  territory  as 
well  as  the  Island  of  Minorca.  In  North  America, 
she  gave  up  Canada  with  its  60,000  French  inhabitants. 
She  also  lost  the  River  and  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  the 
valley  of  the  Ohio,  the  left  bank  of  the  Mississippi, 
four  islands  in  the  West  Indies,  and  her  African  trading- 
post  of  Senegal.  In  return,  she  received  the  Islands 
of  Guadeloupe,  Martinique,  Marie-Galande,  Desirade 
and  St.  Lucia!  In  Asia,  she  was  granted  Pondicherry, 
Chandernagor  and  other  places,  but  was  prohibited 
from  fortifying  them.  Spain  yielded  Florida  and 
Pensacola  Bay  to  England,  in  order  to  recover  Cuba 
and  the  Philippines;  and  after  a  while,  France  made 
her  a  present  of  Louisiana.  Thus,  New  France  was 
completely  effaced  from  the  map  of  America;  and 
France  proper,  while  losing  almost  all  her  other  colonial 
possessions,  saw  her  maritime  power,  her  military 
prestige  and  her  political  importance  disappear.  She 
was  now  only  in  the  second  grade  among  the  nations. 
On  the  same  level  stood  Spain,  while  Portugal  had 
long  vsince  ceased  to  count.  Austria  had  declined  and 
Protestant  England  and  Prussia  ruled,  while  schis- 
matic Russia  was  looming  up  in  the  North. 

In  Spain,  Charles  III  had  succeeded  to  the  throne 
in  1759.  He  had  previously  been  King  of  Naples, 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      427 

where  he  had  reigned  not  without  honor.  It  is  true 
he  made  the  mistake  of  accepting  Choiseul's  "  Family 
Compact "  which  united  the  fortunes  of  Spain  with 
those  of  the  degenerate  Bourbons,  but  he  is  never- 
theless credited  with  being  paternal  in  his  adminis- 
trations and  virtuous  in  his  private  life.  Unfortunately 
while  in  Naples,  he  had  chosen  as  his  minister  of  finance, 
the  Marquis  de  Tanucci,  a  Tuscan  who  had  at  an 
early  stage  inaugurated  a  contest  with  the  Holy  See  on 
the  right  of  asylum.  "  But  one  seeks  in  vain  anything 
on  which  to  build  the  exalted  reputation  which  Tanucci 
enjoyed  during  life  and  which  clung  to  him  even  after 
death.  His  financial  system  was  false;  for  instead  of 
encouraging  the  arts,  perfecting  agriculture,  building 
roads,  opening  canals,  establishing  manufactures  in 
the  fertile  country  over  which  he  ruled,  he  did  nothing 
but  make  it  bristle  with  custom-houses.  Men  of 
science,  jurists,  archaeologists,  literary  and  other 
distinguished  men,  he  left  in  prison  or  allowed  to 
starve  "  (Biographie  universelle). 

Tanucci's  moral  character  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  when  entrusted  with  the  regency  at  Naples, 
he  purposely  neglected  the  education  of  the  crown 
prince,  keeping  him  aloof  from  political  life,  and  giving 
him  every  opportunity  to  indulge  his  passions.  He 
declared  war  against  the  Holy  See;  he  restricted  the 
ancient  rights  of  the  nuncios;  diminished  the  number 
of  bishoprics;  suppressed  seventy-eight  monasteries; 
named  one  of  his  henchmen  Archbishop  of  Naples,  and 
forbade  a  ceremonial  homage  to  be  paid  to  the  Pope 
which  had  been  in  use  ever  since  the  time  of  Charles  of 
Anjou.  He  governed  the  Two  Sicilies  for  fifty  years 
and  took  with  him  to  the  grave  the  execration  of  the 
nobles  and  the  hatred  of  the  people  of  the  Two  King- 
doms. Duclos  said  of  him  "  he  was  of  all  the  men  I 
ever  knew  the  least  fitted  to  govern." 


428  The  Jesuits 

The  Spanish  ministers  were  very  numerous  and  very 
bad.  There  was  Wall,  whom  Schoell  described  as 
Irish,  whereas  Ranke  deprives  him  of  that  distinction 
by  classing  him  among  the  political  atheists  of  that 
time.  Of  Squillace,  little  is  said  except  that  he  was  a 
Neapolitan  and  probably  belonged  to  one  of  the 
branches  of  the  Borgia  family.  He  is  the  individual 
whose  legislation  caused  a  burlesque  disturbance  in 
Madrid  about  cloaks  and  sombreros.  The  Jesuits 
were  falsely  accused  of  being  the  instigators  of  the 
riot  and  suffered  for  it  in  consequence.  Finally, 
after  many  changes,  there  came  the  saturnine  and 
self-sufficient  Aranda,  "who,  "says  Schoell,  "sniffed  with 
pleasure  the  incense  which  the  French  Encyclopedists 
burned  on  his  altar,  and  whose  greatest  glory  was  to 
be  rated  as  one  of  the  enemies  of  the  altar  and  the 
throne."  A  former  minister  of  Ferdinand  V  with  the 
ominous  title  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  his  intimate  and 
shared  his  many  schemes  in  fomenting  anti-Jesuitism. 
Aranda  is  described  as  follows,  by  the  Marquis  de 
Langle  in  his  "  Voyag-e  en  Espagne  "  (I,  27) :  "  He  is 
the  only  Spaniard  of  our  time  whose  name  posterity 
can  inscribe  on  its  tablets.  He  is  the  man  who  wanted 
to  cut  in  the  fagade  of  every  temple  and  unite  on  the 
same  shield  the  names  of  Luther,  Calvin,  Mahomet, 
William  Penn  and  Jesus  Christ;  and  to  proclaim  from 
the  frontiers  of  Navarre  to  the  straits  of  Cadiz,  that 
Torquemada,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  blasphemers. 
He  sold  altar-furniture,  crucifixes  and  candelabra  for 
bridges,  wine-shops  and  public  roads." 

In  France,  conditions  were  still  worse.  During  a 
reign  of  fifty-six  years,  Louis  XV  trampled  on  all  the 
decencies  of  public  and  private  life.  He  was  the 
degraded  slave  of  Pompadour,  a  woman  who  dictated 
his  policies,  named  his  ministers,  appointed  his  ambas- 
sadors, made  at  least  one  of  his  cardinals,  and  even 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash        429 

directed  his  armies.  Her  power  was  so  great  that  the 
Empress  of  Austria  felt  compelled  to  address  her  as 
"  ma  bonne  amie."  She  was  succeeded  by  du  Barry 
who  was  taken  from  a  house  of  debauch.  The  coarse- 
ness of  this  creature  deprived  her  of  much  of  the  power 
possessed  by  her  predecessor,  except  that  Louis  was 
her  slave.  It  was  Pompadour  who  brought  Choiseul 
out  of  obscurity  to  reward  him  for  revealing  a  plot 
to  make  one  of  his  own  cousins  supplant  her  in  her 
relations  to  the  king.  For  that,  he  was  made  ambas- 
sador to  Rome  in  1754,  where  during  the  last  illness  of 
Benedict  XIV,  he  was  planning  with  other  ambassadors 
to  interpose  the  royal  vetos  in  the  election  of  Benedict's 
successor.  Before  that  event,  however,  he  was  sent 
to  Vienna,  from  which  post,  he  rose  successively  until 
he  had  France  completely  in  his  grasp.  The  "  Family 
Compact  "  or  union  of  all  the  Bourbon  princes,  which 
was  a  potent  instrument  in  the  war  against  the  Jesuits, 
was  his  conception.  He  was  a  friend  of  La  Chalotais, 
one  of  the  arch-enemies  of  the  Society,  and  was  an 
intimate  of  Voltaire,  whose  property  at  Ferney  he 
exempted  from  taxation.  The  spirit  of  his  religious 
policy  consisted  in  what  was  then  called  "  an  enlight- 
ened despotism,"  or  a  systematic  hatred  of  everything 
Christian. 

Cre"tineau-Joly  describes  him  as  follows:  "  He  was 
the  ideal  gentleman  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He 
was  controlled  by  its  unbelief,  its  airs,  its  vanity,  its 
nobility,  its  dissoluteness,  insolence,  courage,  and  by  a 
levity  which  would  have  sacrificed  the  peace  of  Europe 
for  an  epigram.  He  was  all  for  show;  settling  questions 
which  he  had  merely  skimmed  over  and  sniffing  the 
incense  offered  to  him  by  the  Encyclopedists,  but 
shuddering  at  the  thought  that  they  might  fancy 
themselves  his  teachers.  He  would  admit  no  master 
either  on  the  throne  or  below  it.  His  life's  ambition 


430  The  Jesuits 

was  to  govern  France  and  to  apply  to  that  sick  nation 
the  remedies  he  had  dreamed  would  restore  her  to 
health.  He  could  not  do  so  except  by  winning  public 
opinion,  and  for  that  purpose,  he  flattered  the  philoso- 
phers, captured  the  parliament,  cringed  to  Madame  de 
Pompadour  and  made  things  pleasant  for  the  king. 
When  he  had  gathered  everyone  on  his  side,  he  set 
himself  to  hunting  the  Jesuits." 

On  the  throne  of  Portugal  sat  Joseph  I,  of  whom, 
Father  Weld  in  his  "  Suppression  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  "  (p.  91)  writes:  "  Joseph  I  united  all  those 
points  of  character  which  were  calculated  to  make 
him  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  had  the  audacity 
to  assume  the  command  and  astuteness  to  represent 
himself  as  a  most  humble  and  faithful  servant.  Timid 
and  weak,  like  Louis  XV,  he  was  easily  filled  with 
fear  for  the  safety  of  his  own  person,  and,  to  a  degree 
never  reached  by  the  French  king,  was  incapable  of 
exerting  his  own  will  when  advised  by  any  one  who  had 
succeeded  in  gaining  his  confidence.  To  this  mental 
weakness,  he  also  added  the  lamentable  failing  of 
being  a  slave  to  his  own  voluptuous  passions.  It 
required  but  little  insight  into  human  nature  to  see 
that  a  terrible  scourge  was  in  store  for  Portugal. 
To  the  evils  of  misrule,  it  pleased  God  to  add  other 
terrible  calamities  which  overwhelmed  the  country  in 
misery  that  cannot  be  described.  The  licentious 
habits  of  his  father,  John  V  had  already  impaired  the 
national  standard  of  morals.  The  nobility  had  ceased 
to  visit  their  estates  and  had  degenerated  into  a  race 
of  mere  courtiers.  The  interests  of  the  common  people 
were  neglected  by  the  Government,  and  almost  their 
only  friends  were  the  religious  orders."  (The  Catholic 
Encyclopedia,  XII,  304). 

The  real  master  of  Portugal  in  those  days  was  Don 
Sebastioa  Jose  Carvalho,  better  known  as  Pombal  - 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      431 

the  gigantic  ex-soldier  who,  despite  his  herculean 
strength  and  reckless  daring,  was  ignored  when  there 
was  question  of  promotion.  He  left  the  army  in 
disgust,  and  by  the  influence  of  the  queen,  Maria 
of  Austria,  and  that  of  his  uncle,  the  court  chaplain, 
was  sent  as  ambassador  to  London  and  then  to  Vienna. 
In  both  places  he  was  a  disastrous  failure,  probably 
on  account  of  his  brutal  manners.  Returning  to 
Lisbon,  he  paid  the  most  obsequious  attention  to 
churchmen,  especially  to  the  king's  confessor,  the  Jesuit 
Carbone,  who  kept  continually  recommending  him 
until  John  V  bade  him  never  to  mention  Carvalho's 
name.  To  the  Marquis  of  Valenza,  who  also  urged 
Carvalho's  promotion,  John  said:  "  that  man  has  hairs 
in  his  heart  and  he  comes  from  a  cruel  and  vindictive 
family."  At  the  death  of  John  and  the  retirement  of 
the  aged  Motta,  the  former  prime  minister,  the  queen 
regent,  who  was  fond  of  Carvalho's  Austrian  wife 
made  Pombal  prime  minister:  and  Moreira,  another 
Jesuit  confessor,  was  insistent  in  proclaiming  his 
wonderful  ability.  Never  was  departure  from  the 
principles  and  rules  of  the  religious  state  by  meddling 
with  things  outside  the  sphere  of  duty  so  terribly 
punished.  Father  Weld,  however,  when  speaking  of 
Moreira,  who  was  a  prisoner  in  Jonquiera,  has  a  note 
which  says  that  "  Moreira  protested  to  the  end  that 
he  had  never  uttered  a  word  in  favor  of  Carvalho." 
No  sooner  was  Carvalho  in  power  than  the  violence 
of  his  character  began  to  display  itself  in  the  sanguinary 
measures  he  employed  to  suppress  the  brigandage  that 
was  rife  in  the  country  and  even  in  the  capital 
itself.  The  nobility,  especially,  were  marked  out  for 
punishment;  and  when  public  criticism  began  to  be 
heard,  he  issued  furious  edicts  against  the  calumniators 
of  the  administration.  He  suppressed  with  terrible 
severity  a  rising  at  Porto  against  a  wine-company 


432  The  Jesuits 

which  he  had  established  there,  and  began  a  series  of 
attacks  on  the  most  eminent  personages  of  the  kingdom. 
He  dismissed  in  disgrace  the  minister  of  the  navy, 
Diego  de  Mendoza;  and  de  la  Cerda,  the  ambassador 
to  Prance;  as  well  as  John  de  Braganza,  the  Marquis  of 
Marialva  and  many  others.  He  gave  the  highest 
positions,  ecclesiastical  and  political,  to  his  relatives; 
forced  the  king  to  sign  edicts  without  reading  them, 
some  of  which  made  criticism  of  the  government  high 
treason,  and  he  extended  their  application  even  to 
the  ordinances  of  his  minister;  he  silenced  the  preachers 
who  spoke  of  public  disasters  as  punishment  of  God; 
and  forbade  them  to  publish  anything  without  his 
approbation.  Though  he  reorganized  the  navy,  he  left 
the  army  a  wreck,  lest  the  nobles  might  control  it. 
There  was  no  public  press  in  Portugal  during  his 
administration,  and  the  mails  were  distributed  only 
once  a  week.  He  encouraged  commerce  and  organized 
public  works,  but  always  to  enrich  himself  and  his 
family.  He  flung  thousands  into  prison  without  even 
the  pretence  of  a  trial,  and  at  his  downfall  in  1782 
says  the  "  Encyclopedic  catholique,"  "  out  of  the 
subterraneous  dungeons  there  issued  eight  hundred 
of  his  victims,  the  remnants  of  the  nine  thousand  who 
had  survived  their  entombment;  and  a  government 
order  was  issued  declaring  that  none  of  the  victims 
living  or  dead  had  been  guilty  of  the  crimes  imputed 
to  them."  This  was  the  man  who  was  declared  by  the 
Philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  be  "  the 
illuminator  of  his  nation." 

Nor  was  there  much  comfort  to  be  hoped  for  in 
Austria.  Maria  Theresa  was  undoubtedly  pious,  kind 
hearted  and  devoted  to  her  people,  but  as  ruler  is  very 
much  overrated.  Her  advisers  were  commonly  the 
men  who  were  plotting  the  ruin  of  all  existing  govern- 
ments —  Jansenists  and  Freethinkers.  Even  her  court 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      433 

physicians  were  close  allies  of  the  schismatical  Jansenist 
Archbishop  of  Utrecht,  and  they  made  liberal  and 
constant  use  of  the  great  esteem  they  enjoyed  at 
Vienna  to  foment  hostility  to  the  Holy  See.  They 
even  succeeded  in  persuading  the  empress,  though  they 
were  only  laymen,  to  appoint  a  commission  for  the 
reform  of  theological  teaching  in  the  seminaries;  and 
one  of  their  friends,  de  Stock,  was  appointed  to  direct 
the  work.  The  Jesuits  were  removed  from  the  pro- 
fessorships of  divinity  and  canon  law;  lay  professors 
were  appointed  in  their  stead  by  the  politicians,  in 
spite  of  the  protests  of  the  bishops;  and  books  were 
published  in  direct  opposition  to  orthodox  teaching. 
At  this  time  appeared  the  famous  treatise  known  as 
"  Febronius "  by  Hontheim,  a  suffragan  bishop  of 
Treves,  who  thus  prepared  for  the  coming  of  Joseph  II. 
The  universities  were  quickly  infected  with  his  doctrines; 
and  new  schools  were  established  at  Bonn  and  Miinster 
out  of  the  money  of  suppressed  convents  in  order  to 
accelerate  the  spread  of  the  poison.  When  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cologne  protested,  it  was  punished  for  its 
temerity. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  if  Maria  Theresa,  with 
her  strong  Catholic  instincts,  was  so  easy  to  control, 
it  was  not  difficult  for  the  statesmen  who  governed 
France,  Spain,  Portugal  and  Italy  to  carry  out  their 
nefarious  schemes  against  the  Church.  The  Free- 
masons were  hard  at  work,  and  immoral  and  atheistic 
literature  was  spread  broadcast.  It  had  already  made 
ravages  among  the  aristocracy  and  the  middle  classes, 
and  now  the  grades  below  were  being  deeply  gangrened. 
Cardinal  Pacca  writing  about  a  period  immediately 
subsequent  to  this,  says:  "  In  the  time  of  my  two 
nunciatures  at  Cologne  and  Lisbon,  I  had  occasion  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  greater  part  of  the  French 
£migr6s,  and  I  regret  to  say  that,  with  the  exception 
28 


434  The  Jesuits 

of  a  few  gentlemen  from  the  Provinces,  they  all  made 
open  profession  of  the  philosophical  maxims  which 
had  brought  about  the  catastrophe  of  which  they  were 
the  first  victims.  They  admitted,  at  times,  in  their 
lucid  moments,  that  the  overturning  of  the  altar  had 
dragged  down  the  throne;  and  that  it  was  the  pretended 
intellectuality  of  the  Freethinkers  that  had  introduced 
into  the  minds  of  the  people  the  new  ideas  of  liberty 
and  equality,  which  had  such  fatal  consequence  for 
them.  Nevertheless,  they  persisted  in  their  errors  and 
even  endeavored  to  spread  them  both  orally  and  by  the 
most  abominable  publications.  God  grant  that  these 
seeds  of  impiety,  flung  broadcast  on  a  still  virgin  soil, 
may  not  produce  more  bitter  and  more  poisonous 
fruit  for  the  Church  and  the  Portuguese  monarchy." 
The  editor  of  the  "  Memoirs  "  adds  in  a  note:  "  They 
have  only  too  well  succeeded  in  producing  the  fruit." 
"  I  remember,"  continues  Pacca,  "  that  during  my 
nunciature  at  Cologne,  some  of  these  distinguished 
"  emigres  "  determined  to  have  a  funeral  service  for 
Marie  Antoinette,  not  out  of  any  religious  sentiment, 
but  merely  to  conform  to  the  fashion  followed  in  the 
courts  of  Europe.  I  was  invited  and  was  present. 
The  priest  who  sang  the  Mass  preached  the  eulogy 
of  the  dead  queen.  In  his  discourse  which  did  not 
lack  either  eloquence  or  solidity,  he  enumerated  the 
causes  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  instanced  chiefly 
the  irreligious  doctrines  taught  by  the  philosophy  of 
the  period.  This  undeniable  proposition  evoked  loud 
murmurs  of  discontent  in  the  congregation,  which  was 
almost  exclusively  composed  of  Frenchmen;  and  when 
the  orator  said  that  Marie  Antoinette  was  one  of  the 
first  victims  of  modern  philosophy,  a  voice  was  heard 
far  down  in  the  church  crying  out  in  the  most  insulting 
fashion:  'That's  not  true.''  When  laymen  who 
professed  to  be  Catholics  were  so  blind  to  patent  facts 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      435 

and  would  dare  to  conduct  themselves  so  disgracefully 
in  a  church  at  a  funeral  service  for  their  murdered 
queen,  there  was  no  hope  of  appealing  to  them  to 
stand  up  for  truth  and  justice  in  the  political  world. 

The  hierarchy  throughout  the  Church  was  devoted 
to  the  Society,  but  it  could  only  protest.  And  hence 
as  soon  as  the  first  signs  appeared  of  the  determination 
to  destroy  the  Order,  letters  and  appeals,  full  of  tender 
affection  and  of  unstinted  praise  for  the  victims, 
poured  into  Rome  from  bishops  all  over  the  world. 
There  were  at  least  two  hundred  sent  to  Clement 
XIII,  but  many  of  them  were  either  lost  or  purposely 
destroyed,  as  soon  as  the  great  Pontiff  breathed  his 
last.  Father  Lagomarsni  found  many  of  them  which 
he  intended  to  publish  but,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
did  not  do  so. 

Some  of  these  papers,  however  have  been  reproduced 
by  de  Ravignan,  in  his  "  Clement  XIII  et  Clement 
XIV."  They  fill  more  than  a  hundred  pages  of  his 
second  volume,  and  he  chose  only  those  that  came 
from  the  most  important  sees  in  the  Church,  such  as 
the  three  German  Archbishoprics  of  Treves,  Cologne 
and  Mayence,  whose  prelates  were  prince  electors  of 
the  empire.  There  are  also  appeals  from  Cardinal 
Lamberg  the  Prince-Bishop  of  Passau,  from  the 
Primate  of  Germany,  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  the 
Primates  of  Bohemia,  of  Hungary,  and  of  Ireland. 
The  Archbishop  of  Armagh  says  "  he  lived  with  the 
Jesuits  from  childhood,  and  loved  and  admired  them." 
There  are  letters  from  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of 
Turin;  the  Archbishops  of  Messina,  Monreale,  Sor- 
rento, Seville,  Compostella,  Tarragona,  and  even  from 
the  far  north, —  from  Norway  and  Denmark,  where  the 
vicar-Apostolic  begs  the  Pope  to  save  those  distant 
countries  from  the  ruin  which  will  certainly  fall  on 
them  if  the  Jesuits  are  withdrawn.  They  are  all 


436  The  Jesuits 

dated  between  the  years  1758  and  1760.  The  Polish 
Bishop  of  Kiew  begs  the  Pope  to  stand  "  like  a  wall 
of  brass  "  against  the  enemies  of  the  Society,  which 
he  calls  a  religiosissimus  catus.  For  the  Bishops  of 
Lombez,  it  is  the  dilectissima  Societas  Jesu,  qua 
concussa,  confugit  in  sinum  nostrum  — "  the  most 
beloved  Society  of  Jesus  which,  when  struck,  rushed 
to  our  arms."  The  Bishop  of  Narbonne  declares: 
"It  is  known  and  admitted  through  all  the  world 
that  the  Society  of  Jesus,  which  is  worthy  of  all  respect, 
has  never  ceased  to  render  services  to  the  Church 
in  every  part  of  the  world.  There  never  was  an  order 
whose  sons  have  fulfilled  the  duties  of  the  sacred 
ministry  with  more  burning,  pure  and  intelligent  zeal. 
Nothing  could  check  their  zeal;  and  the  most  furious 
storm  only  displayed  the  constancy  and  solidity  of 
their  virtue."  Du  Guesclin  denounces  the  persecution 
as  "  atrocious;  the  like  of  which  was  never  heard  of 
before."  "  I  omit,"  says  the  Archbishop  of  Auch, 
"  an  infinite  number  of  things  which  redound  to  their 
praise."  The  Bishop  of  Malaga  recalls  how  Clement 
VIII  described  them  as  "  the  right  arm  of  the  Holy  See. " 
The  Archbishop  of  Salzburg  bitterly  resents  "  the 
calumnious  and  defamatory  charges  against  them." 
And,  so,  in  each  one  of  these  communications  to  the 
Holy  Father,  there  is  nothing  but  praise  for  the  victims 
and  indignant  denunciations  of  their  executioners. 
The  three  Pontiffs  who  occupied  the  Chair  of  St. 
Peter  at  that  period  were  Benedict  XIV,  Clement  XIII 
and  Clement  XIV.  Benedict  died  on  May  3,  1758, 
eighteen  days  before  Father  Ricci  was  elected  General. 
Clement  XIII  was  the  ardent  defender  of  the  Society 
during  the  ten  stormy  years  of  his  pontificate;  and 
finally  Clement  XIV  yielded  to  the  enemy  and  put  his 
name  to  the  Brief  which  legislated  the  Order  out  of 
existence. 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      437 

Perhaps  there  never  was  a  Pope  who  enjoyed  such 
universal  popularity  as  the  brilliant  Benedict  XIV. 
His  attractive  personality,  his  great  ability  as  a  writer, 
his  readiness  to  go  to  all  lengths  in  the  way  of  con- 
cession, elicited  praise  even  from  heretics,  Turks  and 
unbelievers.  As  regards  his  attitude  to  the  Society, 
there  can  be  no  possible  doubt  that  he  entertained 
for  it  not  only  admiration,  but  great  affection.  He  had 
been  a  pupil  in  its  schools,  and  had  always  shown  its 
members  the  greatest  honor.  He  defended  it  against 
its  enemies,  and  lavished  praise  again  and  again  on 
the  Institute.  It  is  true  that  he  re-affirmed  the  Bulls 
of  his  predecessor  condemning  the  Malabar  and  Chinese 
Rites,  but  he  denied  indignantly  that  he  was  thereby 
explicitly  condemning  the  Jesuits.  It  is  also  true 
that  he  appointed  Saldanha,  at  the  request  of  Pombal, 
to  investigate  the  Jesuit  houses  in  Portugal;  but  in 
the  first  place,  that  permission  was  wrung  from  him 
when  he  was  a  dying  man;  and  there  is  no  doubt  what- 
ever that  in  doing  so,  he  was  convinced  that  the  con- 
cession would  propitiate  Pombal  and  not  injure  the 
Jesuits,  whose  conduct  he  knew  to  be  without  reproach. 
Moreover,  he  had  put  as  a  proviso  in  the  Brief  that 
Saldanha  who,  though  the  Pope  was  unaware  of  it, 
was  an  agent  of  Pombal,  should  not  publish  any 
grievous  charge  if  any  such  were  to  be  formulated, 
but  should  refer  it  to  Rome  for  judgment.  Finally,  as 
the  Brief  was  signed  on  April  i,  1758,  and  as  the 
Pope  died  on  May  3,  Saldanha's  powers  ceased.  That 
however,  did  not  trouble  him  and  he  did  every- 
thing that  Pombal  bade  him  to  do,  to  defame 
and  destroy  the  Society.  He  was  not  Benedict's 
agent. 

Far  from  being  prejudiced  against  the  Society, 
Benedict  XIV  did  nothing  but  bestow  praise  on  it 
during  all  his  long  pontificate.  In  1746  in  the  Bull 


438  The  Jesuits 

"Devotam,"  he  says  that  "it  has  rendered  the  greatest 
services  to  the  Church  and  has  ever  been  governed  with 
as  much  success  as  prudence."  In  1748  the  "  Pra- 
clairs  "  declared  that  "  these  Religious  are  everywhere 
regarded  as  the  good  odor  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  are  so 
in  effect,"  and,  in  the  same  year,  the  Bull  "  Constantem  " 
affirmed  that  "  they  give  to  the  world  examples  of 
religious  virtue  and  profound  science."  Benedict 
died  in  the  arms  of  the  Jesuit,  Father  Pepe,  his  con- 
fessor and  friend. 

Clement  XIII,  whose  name  was  Cafllo  della  Torre 
Rezzonico,  was  born  at  Venice,  March  7,  1693;  after 
studying  with  the  Jesuits  at  Bologna,  he  was  appointed 
referendary  of  the  tribunal  known  as  the  Segnatura  di 
Giustizia,  and  later  became  Governor  of  Rieti,  car- 
dinal-deacon and  in  1743  Bishop  of  Padua.  He  was 
called  a  saint  by  his  people ;  in  spite  of  the  vast  revenues 
of  his  diocese,  he  was  always  in  want  for  he  gave  every- 
thing to  the  poor,  even  the  shirt  on  his  back.  On 
July  5,  1758,  he  was  elected  Pope  to  succeed  Benedict 
XIV.  The  first  shock  he  received  as  head  of  the 
Church  was  in  1758  from  Pombal,  who  insulted  him 
by  sending  back  an  extremely  courteous  letter  which 
the  Pontiff  had  written  in  answer  to  a  demand  for 
leave  to  punish  three  Jesuits  who  happened  to  know 
a  nobleman  against  whom  a  charge  had  been  lodged  of 
attempting  to  assassinate  the  king.  Pombal  followed 
up  the  outrage  by  flinging  all  the  exiled  Jesuits  on 
the  Papal  States;  and  then,  in  1760,  by  dismissing 
the  Papal  ambassador  from  Lisbon.  In  1761  Pope 
Clement  wrote  to  Louis  XV  of  France,  imploring 
him  to  stop  the  proceedings  against  the  Jesuits: 
in  1762  he  protested  against  the  proposed  suppression 
of  the  Society  in  France;  and  in  1764  he  denounced 
the  government  programme  which  he  declared  was  an 
assault  upon  the  Church  itself. 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      439 

Spain  was  guilty  of  the  next  outrage  when,  in  1767, 
Charles  III  imitated  Pombal  by  expelling  the  Jesuits 
and  deporting  them  to  Civita  Vecchia:  and  then 
refusing  to  answer  a  letter  of  the  Pope  who  asked  for 
an  explanation  of  the  proceeding.  Naples  and  Parma 
insulted  him  in  a  similar  fashion.  And  to  add  injury 
to  outrage,  the  Bourbon  coalition  seized  the  Papal 
possessions  of  Avignon  and  Venaissin  in  France,  and 
Benevento  and  Montecorvo  in  Italy.  Finally,  when 
Spain,  France  and  Naples  sent  him  a  joint  note  demand- 
ing the  universal  suppression  of  the  Society,  he  died  of 
grief  on  February  3,  1769.  He  was  then  seventy- 
five  years  old,  and  had  governed  the  Church  for  ten 
years,  six  months  and  twenty-six  days.  Canova,  one 
of  the  last  of  the  Jesuit  pupils,  built  his  monument, 
putting  at  the  feet  of  the  Pontiff  two  lions  —  one  asleep, 
the  other  erect  and  ready  for  the  combat.  It  was  a 
representation  in  the  mind  of  the  sculptor  portraying 
the  meekness  of  Clement,  combined  with  an  indomitable 
courage  which  defied  the  kings  of  Europe  who  were 
attacking  the  Church. 

De  Ravignan  says  of  him:  "  Not  because  I  am  a 
Jesuit,  but  independently  of  that  affiliation,  I  regard 
Clement  XIII  as  endowed  with  the  most  genuine 
traits  of  grandeur  and  glory  that  ever  shone  in  the 
most  illustrious  popes.  He  brings  back  to  me  the 
lineaments  of  Innocent  III,  of  Gregory  VII,  of  Pius  V, 
of  Clement  XL  Like  them  he  had  to  fight;  like  them 
he  had  to  face  the  powers  of  earth  in  league  against 
the  Church;  like  them  he  knew  how  to  unite  the  most 
inflexible  firmness  with  the  most  patient  moderation. 
Alone,  as  it  were,  in  the  midst  of  a  Christendom  that 
was  conspiring  against  the  Chair  of  Peter,  he  suffered 
and  moaned,  but  he  fought.  He  was  not  a  politician; 
he  was  a  Pope.  As  a  worthy  successor  of  St.  Peter, 
he  stood  solidly  on  the  indestructible  rock.  Always 


440  The  Jesuits 

in  the  presence  of  God  and  his  duty,  when  every 
earthly  interest  and  when  the  most  appealing  entreaties 
seemed  to  suggest  to  him  to  be  silent  and  to  yield 
basely,  he  heard  within  his  soul  the  strong  voice  of 
the  Church,  which  can  never  relinquish  the  rights 
with  which  heaven  has  invested  it;  and  neither  threats, 
nor  outrages,  nor  spoliations  nor  sacrilegious  assaults 
availed  to  bend  his  resolution  to  resist,  or  induced  him 
to  display  any  suspicion  of  feebleness  for  a  single 
instant.  Until  he  died,  Clement  fulfilled  the  august 
mission  of  a  Supreme  Pontiff.  He  fought  for  the 
Church  though  it  cost  him  his  life.  His  death  was 
really  that  of  a  martyr." 

The  successor  of  Clement  XIII  was  not  so  heroic. 
He  was  Lorenzo  or  Giovanni  Antonio  Ganganelli. 
He  was  born  at  Sant'  Archangelo  near  Rimini  on 
October  31,  1705;  and  received  his  education  from  the 
Jesuits  at  Rimini  and  from  the  Piarists  at  Urbano. 
At  the  age  of  nineteen,  he  entered  the  order  of  the 
Minor  Conventuals,  and  changed  his  baptismal  name 
of  Giovanni  to  Lorenzo.  His  talents  and  virtue  raised 
him  to  the  dignity  of  definitor  generalis  of  his  order  in 
1741.  Benedict  XIV  made  him  consultor  of  the  Holy 
Office,  and  Clement  XIII  gave  him  the  cardinal's 
hat  at  the  instance,  it  is  said,  of  Father  Ricci,  the 
General  of  the  Jesuits.  On  May  18,  1769,  he  was 
elected  Pope  by  46  out  of  47  votes.  By  eliminating  a 
great  number  of  possible  cardinals,  the  veto  power  of 
the  Catholic  kings  had  restricted  the  choice  of  a  Pope 
to  four  out  of  the  forty-seven  in  the  Sacred  College.  In 
the  beginning  of  his  career,  Ganganelli  was  extremely 
favorable  to  the  Jesuits:  but  when  he  was  made  a 
cardinal,  a  change  of  disposition  manifested  itself, 
although  in  giving  him  the  honor,  Clement  XIII  had 
said  that  he  was  "  a  Jesuit  in  the  disguise  of  a  Fran- 
ciscan." Once  on  the  Papal  throne,  he  refused  even 


Conditions  Before  the  Crash      441 

Father  Ricci  an  audience,  possibly  through  fear  of 
the  Great  Powers;  for,  before  Clement's  accession  the 
work  of  the  destruction  had  already  begun,  and  the 
new  Pope  found  himself  in  the  centre  of  a  whirlwind. 
It  was  now  clear  that  the  Society  could  never  weather 
the  storm. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

POMBAL 

Early  life  —  Ambitions  —  Portuguese  Missions  —  Seizure  of  the 
Spanish  Reductions.  Expulsion  of  the  Missionaries  —  End  of  the 
Missions  in  Brazil  —  War  against  the  Society  in  Portugal  —  The  Jesuit 
Republic  —  Cardinal  Saldanha  —  Seizure  of  Churches  and  Colleges  — 
The  Assassination  Plot  —  The  Prisons  —  Exiles  —  Execution  of  Mala- 
grida. 

THE  first  conspirator  who  set  to  work  to  carry  out  the 
plot  to  destroy  the  Society,  which  had  long  been 
planned  by  the  powers,  was,  as  might  be  expected, 
the  ruthless  Pombal  He  was  more  shameless  and 
savage  than  his  associates  and  would  adopt  any 
method  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  The  insensate 
fury  which  possessed  his  whole  being  against  the 
Society  is  explained  by  Cardinal  Pacca,  who  was 
Papal  nuncio  in  Lisbon  shortly  after  Pombal's  fall 
(Notizie  sul  Portogallo,  10).  He  writes:  "  Pombal 
began  his  diplomatic  career  in  Germany  where  he 
probably  drank  in  those  principles  of  aversion  to  the 
Holy  See  and  the  religious  orders,  which,  when  after- 
wards put  in  practice,  merited  for  him  from  the  irre- 
ligious philosophers  the  title  of  a  great  minister,  and 
an  illuminator  of  his  nation;  from  good  people,  how- 
ever, that  of  a  vile  instrument  of  the  sects  at  war  with 
the  Church.  Having  obtained  the  office  of  prime 
minister,  he  made  himself  master  of  the  mind  of  the 
king,  Don  Joseph;  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
governed  the  kingdom  as  a  despot. 

"  To  wage  war  against  the  Holy  See,  and  to  oppress 
the  clergy,  he  adopted  the  measures  and  employed 
the  arms  which,  in  the  hands  of  the  irreligious  men  of 


Pombal  443 

our  time,  have  done  and  are  still  doing  harm  and 
inflicting  grievous  wounds  on  the  Church.  He  cor- 
rupted and  perverted  public  education  in  the  schools 
and  universities,  especially  in  Coimbra  which  soon 
became  a  centre  of  moral  pestilence.  He  took  from 
the  hands  of  the  youth  of  the  kingdom  the  sound 
doctrinal  works  which  they  had  so  far  been  made  to 
study;  and  substituted  schismatical  and  heretical  pub- 
lications such  as  Dupin's  'De  antiqua  ecclesia'  which 
had  been  condemned  by  Innocent  XII ;  and  Hontheim's 
'  Febronius  '  condemned  by  Clement  XIII.  He  also 
brought  into  Portugal  the  works  of  the  regalists,  and 
excluded  those  writers  who  maintained  the  rights 
and  authority  of  the  Holy  See,  in  defence  of  which  he 
would  not  allow  a  word  to  be  uttered.  And  to  the 
horror  of  all  decent  people,  he  imprisoned  in  a  loath- 
some dungeon  a  holy  and  venerable  bishop  who  had 
warned  his  flock  against  those  pernicious  publications 
Meantime  the  notorious  Oratorian  Pereira,  who  was 
condemned  by  the  Index,  and  others  who  flattered  him 
were  remunerated  for  their  writings  and  could  print 
whatever  they  liked.  He  was  a  Jansenist  who,  in 
the  perfidious  fashion  of  the  sect,  exalted  the  authority 
of  the  bishops  in  order  to  dimmish  that  of  the  Pope; 
and  enlarged  the  authority  of  kings  in  church  matters 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  system  differed  very  little 
from  that  of  the  Protestant  Anglican  Church.  Queen 
Maria,  who  succeeded  Joseph  on  the  throne,  did  much 
to  improve  conditions;  but  did  not  undo  all  the  harm 
that  Pombal  had  already  inflicted  on  the  nation. 
Disguised  Anglicanism  continued  to  exist  in  Portugal." 
Father  Weld  adds  his  own  judgment  to  that  of  the 
cardinal,  and  tells  us  that  "  the  bias  in  Pombal' s 
nature  may  be  traced  to  his  English  associations  when 
he  was  ambassador  in  London."  He  advances  this 
view,  probably  because  of  a  note  of  Pacca's,  who  says 


444  The  Jesuits 

that  he  could  venture  no  opinion  about  the  influence  of 
England  on  Pombal,  merely  for  want  of  documents 
on  that  point.  The  author  of  the  "  Memoires  pour 
servir  a  1'histoire  ecclesiastique  du  xviiie  siecle  "  assures 
us  that  Pombal's  purpose  was  to  extend  his  reforms 
even  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church;  to  change,  to 
destroy;  to  subject  the  bishops  to  his  will;  to  declare 
himself  an  enemy  of  the  Holy  See;  to  protect  authors 
hostile  to  "the  Holy  See;  to  encourage  publications 
savoring  of  novelty;  to  favor  in  Portugal  a  theological 
instruction  quite  different  from  what  had  been  adopted 
previous  to  his  time;  and  finally  to  open  the  way  to  a 
pernicious  teaching  in  a  country  which  until  then 
had  enjoyed  religious  peace. 

This  scheme  did  not  restrict  itself  to  a  religious 
propaganda  but  got  into  the  domain  of  politics;  for 
the  author  of  the  "  Vita  di  Pombal  "  (I,  145)  notes  the 
report,  which  is  confirmed  by  the  "  Memoria  Catholica 
secunda  "  that  "  Pombal  had  formed  the  design  of 
marrying  the  Princess  Maria  to  the  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land, tlie  butcher  of  Culloden  —  but  that  this  was 
thwarted  by  the  Jesuit  confessor  of  the  king."  On 
this  point  the  Marechal  de  Belle  Isle  writes  (Testament 
politique,  108):  "It  is  known  that  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  looked  forward  to  becoming  King  of 
Portugal,  and  I  doubt  not  he  would  have  succeeded, 
if  the  Jesuit  confessors  of  the  royal  family  had  not  been 
opposed  to  it.  This  crime  was  never  forgiven  the 
Portuguese  Jesuits." 

Whatever  the  truth  may  be  about  these  royal 
schemes,  Pombal  soon  found  his  chance  to  wreak  his 
vengeance  on  the  Society  for  balking  his  plans  of  making 
Portugal  a  Protestant  country.  A  scatter-brained 
individual,  named  Pereira,  who  lived  at  Rio  Janerio, 
raised  the  cry  which  may  have  been  suggested  to  him, 
that  the  Jesuits  of  the  Reductions  excluded  white 


Pombal  445 

intercourse  with  the  natives  because  of  the  valuable 
gold  mines  they  possessed;  and  that  it  would  be  a 
proper  and,  indeed,  a  most  commendable  thing  in  the 
interests  of  religion  for  the  government  to  seize  this 
source  of  wealth,  and  thus  compel  the  Jesuits  who 
controlled  that  territory  to  live  up  to  the  holiness 
of  their  profession.  It  was  also  added  that  the  missions 
were  little  else  than  a  great  commercial  speculation; 
and  finally  that  the  ultimate  design  of  the  Society  was 
to  make  a  Republic  of  Paraguay,  independent  of  the 
mother  country. 

These  three  charges  had  been  reiterated  over  and  over 
again  ever  since  the  foundation  of  the  Reductions, 
and  had  been  just  as  often  refuted  and  officially  denied 
after 'the  most  vigorous  investigation.  But  there  was 
a  man  now  in  control  of  Portugal  who  would  not  be 
biased  by  any  religious  sentiment  or  regard  for  truth, 
if  he  could  injure  the  Society.  The  first  step  was  to 
transfer  the  aforesaid  missions  to  Portuguese  control. 
They  all  lay  on  the  east  shore  of  the  Uruguay,  and 
belonged  to  Spain.  Hence,  in  1750,  a  treaty  was 
made  between  Spain  and  Portugal,  to  concede  to 
Spain  the  undisputed  control  of  the  rich  colony  of 
San  Sacramento,  at  the  mouth  of  the  River  La  Plata, 
in  exchange  for  the  territory,  in  which  lay  the  seven 
Reductions  of  St.  Michael,  St.  Lawrence,  St.  Aloysius, 
St.  John,  St.  Francis  Borgia,  Holy  Angels  and  St. 
Nicholas.  According  to  the  treaty,  it  was  stipulated 
that  the  Portuguese  should  take  immediate  possession 
and  fling  out  into  the  world,  they  did  not  care  where, 
the  30,000  Indians  who  had  built  villages  in  the 
country,  and  were  peacefully  cultivating  their 
farms,  and  who  by  the  uprightness  and  purity 
of  their  lives  were  giving  to  the  world  and  to  all 
times  an  example  of  what  Muratori  calls  a  Cristi- 
ancsimo  felice. 


446  The  Jesuits 

To  add  to  the  brutality  of  the  act,  the  Fathers 
themselves  were  ordered  to  announce  to  the  Indians 
the  order  to  vacate.  Representations  were  made  by 
the  Spanish  Viceroy  of  Peru,  the  Royal  Audiencia  of 
Charcas  and  various  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities 
of  Spain  that  not  only  was  this  seizure  a  most  atrocious 
violation  of  justice  which  could  not  be  carried  out 
except  by  bloodshed,  no  one  could  say  to  what  extent, 
but  that  it  was  giving  up  the  property  of  the  Indians 
to  their  bitterest  enemies,  the  Portuguese.  For  it  was 
precisely  to  avoid  the  Mamelukes  of  Brazil  that  the 
Reductions  had  been  originally  created.  Moreover, 
it  would  almost  compel  the  Indians  to  conclude  that 
the  Fathers  had  betrayed  them,  and  that  they  were 
not  only  parties  to,  but  instigators  of,  the  whole 
scheme  of  spoliation.  Southey,  in  his  "  History  of 
Brazil,"  denounces  it  as  "  one  of  the  most  tyrannical 
commands  that  were  ever  issued,  in  the  recklessness 
of  unfeeling  power,"  and  says  that  "  the  weak 
Ferdinand  VI  had  no  idea  of  the  importance  of  the 
treaty." 

The  Jesuits  appealed;  but  they  were,  of  course, 
unheeded;  and  the  Father  General  Visconti  ordered 
them  to  submit  without  a  murmur.  Unfortunately, 
the  commissioner  Father  Altamirano,  whom  he  sent 
out  was  a  bad  choice.  He  was  hot-headed  and 
imperious;  and  according  to  Father  Huonder  (The 
Catholic  Encyclopedia)  actually  treated  his  fellow 
Jesuits  as  rebels,  when  they  advised  him  to  proceed 
with  moderation.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
representative  of  the  king,  as  well  as  of  the  General, 
affected  him;  at  all  events  the  Indians  would  have 
killed  him  if  he  had  not  fled.  Ten  years  would  not 
have  sufficed  for  a  transfer  of  such  a  vast  multitude 
with  their  women  and  children,  and  the  old  and  infirm, 
not  to  speak  of  the  herds  and  flocks  and  farming 


Pombal  447 

implements  and  household  furniture,  yet  they  were 
ordered  to  decamp  within  thirty  days.  Pombal 
would  soon  treat  his  Jesuit  fellow  countrymen  as  he  had 
treated  the  Indians. 

When,  at  last,  the  cruel  edict  was  published,  all  the 
savage  instincts  of  the  Indians  awoke,  and  it  seemed 
for  a  time  as  if  the  missionaries  would  be  massacred. 
It  speaks  well  for  the  solid  Christian  training  that  had 
been  given  to  these  children  of  the  forest  that  they  at 
last  consented  to  consider  the  matter  at  all.  Some  of 
the  caciques  were  actually  won  over  to  the  advisability 
of  the  measure,  and  started  out  with  several  hundred 
exiles  to  find  a  new  home  in  the  wilderness.  A  number 
of  the  children  and  the  sick  succumbed  on  the  way. 
When,  at  last  they  found  a  place  in  the  mountains  of 
Quanai,  they  were  attacked  by  hostile  .tribes.  They 
resisted  for  a  while,  but  finally  returned  in  despair 
to  their  former  abode.  To  make  matters  worse,  the 
Bishop  of  Paraguay  notified  the  Fathers  that  if  they 
did  not  obey,  they  would  be  ipso  facto  suspended. 
"  Whereas,"  says  Weld,  "  if  the  Fathers  really  wished 
to  oppose  the  government,  a  single  sign  from  them  would 
have  sent  an  army  of  fifty  thousand  men  to  resist  the 
Europeans;  but  owing  to  their  fidelity  and  incredible 
exertions,  there  were  never  as  many  as  seven  hundred 
men  in  the  field  against  the  united  armies  of  Spain 
and  Portugal  when  hostilities  at  last  broke  out." 

During  the  year  1 754,  the  Indians  harassed  the  enemy 
by  the  skirmishes  and  won  many  a  victory;  and  they 
would  have  ultimately  triumphed  if  they  had  had  a 
leader.  At  last  in  1755,  the  combined  forces  of  the 
enemy  with^thirty  pieces  of  artillery  attacked  them 
with  the  result  that  might  have  been  expected.  The 
natives  rushed  frantically  on  their  foes;  but  the 
musketry  and  cannon  stretched  four  hundred  of  them 
in  their  blood ;  and  the  rest  either  fled  to  the  mountains 


448  The  Jesuits 

or  relapsed  into  savage  life;  or  made  their  submission 
to  the  government,  many  becoming  as  bad  as  their 
kindred  in  the  forests  because  of  the  corruption  they 
saw  around  them.  The  Portuguese  entered  into 
possession  of  the  seven  Reductions,  but  failed  to  find 
any  gold.  So  great  was  their  chagrin  that,  in  1761, 
Carvalho  wanted  the  rich  territory  which  he  had  given 
to  Spain  returned  to  Portugal ;  and  when  Spain  naturally 
demurred,  he  prepared  to  go  to  war  for  it.  He  finally 
gained  his  point,  and  on  February  12,  1761,  the 
territories  were  restored  to  their  original  owners, 
but  nothing  was  stipulated,  about  restitution  to  the 
unfortunate  natives  and  Jesuits  who  had  been  the 
victims  of  this  shameful  political  deal. 

Some  of  the  Indians  who  fled  to  the  forests  kept  up 
a  guerilla  warfare  against  the  invaders;  but  the  greater 
number  followed  the  advice  of  the  Fathers  and  settled 
on  the  Parana  and  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Uruguay. 
In  1762  there  were  2,497  families  scattered  through 
seventeen  Reductions  or  doctrinas,  as  they  had  begun 
to  be  called,  a  term  that  is  equivalent  to  "parish." 
But  the  expulsion  of  the  Fathers  which  followed  soon 
after  completed  the  ruin  of  this  glorious  work.  The 
Indians  died  or  became  savage  again;  and  today  only 
beautiful  ruins  mark  the  place  where  this  great  com- 
monwealth once  stood.  At  the  time  of  the  Suppression, 
or  rather  when  Pombal  drove  the  Jesuits  out  of  every 
Portuguese  post  into  the  dungeons  of  Portugal  or 
flung  them  into  the  Papal  States,  the  Paraguay  province 
had  five  hundred  and  sixty-four  members,  twelve 
colleges,  one  university,  three  houses  for  spiritual 
retreats,  two  residences,  fifty-seven  Reductions  and 
113,716  Christian  Indians.  The  leave-taking  of  the 
Fathers  and  Indians  was  heart-rending  on  both  sides. 

It  is  a  long  distance  from  the  River  La  Plata  to  the 
Amazon;  for  there  are  about  thirty-five  degrees  of 


Pombal  449 

latitude  between  the  two  places.  But  they  were  not 
too  far  apart  to  check  Carvalho  in  his  work  of  de- 
struction. After  having  done  all  he  could  for  the 
moment  at  one  end  of  Brazil,  he  addressed  himself 
to  the  Jesuit  missions  at  the  other.  A  glance  at  the 
past  history  of  these  establishments  will  reveal  the 
frightful  injustice  of  the  brutal  acts  of  1754. 

One  hundred  years  before  that  time,  Vieira  had 
made  his  memorable  fight  against  his  Portuguese 
fellow-countrymen  for  the  liberation  of  the  Indians 
from  slavery.  By  so  doing,  he  had,  of  course,  aroused 
the  fury  of  the  whites,  and  they  determined  to  crush 
him.  They  put  him  in  prison;  and  in  1660  sent  him 
and  his  companions  to  Portugal,  in  a  crazy  ship  to  be 
tried  for  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  colony.  Never- 
theless, he  won  the  fight,  although  meantime  three 
Jesuits  had  been  killed  by  the  Indians,  and  their 
companions  expelled  from  the  colony,  in  spite  of  the 
king's  protection.  In  this  act,  however,  the  Portu- 
guese had  gone  too  far.  His  majesty  saw  the  truth 
and  sent  the  missionaries  back.  That  was  as  early 
as  1 680.  In  1 7 2 5  new  complaints  were  sent  to  Portugal, 
but  the  supreme  governor  of  the  Maranhao  district 
wrote,  as  follows,  to  the  king:  "  The  Fathers  of  the 
Society  in  this  State  of  Maranhao  are  objects  of  enmity 
and  have  always  been  hated,  for  no  other  reason 
than  for  their  strenuous  defence  of  the  liberty  of  the 
unfortunate  Indians,  and  also  because  they  used  all 
their  power  to  oppose  the  tyrannical  oppression  of 
those  who  would  reduce  to  a  degraded  and  unjust 
slavery  men  whom  nature  had  made  free.  The 
Fathers  take  every  possible  care  that  the  laws  of 
your  majesty  on  this  point  shall  be  most  exactly 
observed.  They  devote  themselves  entirely  to  the 
promotion  of  the  salvation  of  souls  and  the  increase 
of  the  possessions  of  your  majesty;  and  have  added 
29 


450  The  Jesuits 

many  sons  to  the  Church  and  subjects  to  the  crown 
from  among  these  barbarous  nations." 

With  regard  to  their  alleged  commerce,  the  governor 
says:  "Whatever  has  been  charged  against  the 
Fathers  by  wicked  calumniators  who,  through  hatred 
and  envy,  manufacture  ridiculous  lies  about  the  wealth 
they  derive  from  those  missions,  I  solemnly  declare  to 
your  majesty,  and  I  speak  of  a  matter  with  which 
I  am  thoroughly  acquainted,  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
Society  are  the  only  true  missionaries  of  these  regions. 
Whatever  they  receive  from  their  labors  among  the 
Indians  is  applied  to  the  good  of  the  Indians  them- 
selves and  to  the  decency  and  ornamentation  of  the 
churches,  which,  in  these  missions,  are  always  very 
neat  and  very  beautiful.  Nothing  whatever  that  is 
required  in  the  missions  is  kept  for  themselves.  As 
they  have  nothing  of  their  own,  whatever  each 
missionary  sends  is  delivered  to  the  procurator  of  the 
mission,  and  every  penny  of  it  reverts  to  the  use 
of  the  particular  mission  from  whence  it  came. 
Missioners  of  other  orders  send  quite  as  much  produce, 
but  each  one  keeps  his  own  portion  separate,  to  be  used 
as  he  likes,  so  that  the  quantity  however  great  being 
thus  divided,  does  not  make  much  impression  on 
those  who  see  it.  But  as  the  missionaries  of  the 
Society  send  everything  together  to  the  procurator, 
the  quantity,  when  seen  in  bulk,  excites  the  cupidity 
of  the  malevolent  and  envious." 

About  1739,  Eduardo  dos  Santos  was  sent  by  John  V 
as  a  special  commissioner  to  Maranhao.  After  spending 
twenty  months  in  visiting  every  mission  and  examining 
every  detail  he  wrote  as  follows:  '  The  execrable 
barbarity  with  which  the  Indians  are  reduced  to  slavery 
has  become  such  a  matter  of  custom  that  it  is  rather 
looked  on  as  -a  virtue.  All  that  is  adduced  against 
this  inhuman  custom  is  received  with  such  repugnance 


Pombal  451 

and  so  quickly  forgotten  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
Society  in  whose  charity  these  unfortunate  creatures 
often  find  refuge  and  protection,  and  who  take  com- 
passion on  their  miserable  lot,  become,  for  this  very 
reason,  objects  of  .hatred  to  these  avaricious  men." 

Such  were  the  official  verdicts  of  the  conduct  of 
the  Jesuits  on  the  Amazon  a  few  years  before  Pombal 
came  into  power.  But  in  1753  regardless  of  all  this 
he  sent  out  his  brother  Francis  Xavier  Mendoza,  a 
particularly  worthless  individual,  and  made  him 
Governor  of  Gran  Para  and  Maranhao,  giving  him  a 
great  squadron  of  ships  and  a  considerable  body  of 
troops  with  orders  to  humble  the  Jesuits  and  send 
back  to  Portugal  any  of  them  who  opposed  his  will. 
Everything  was  done  to  create  opposition.  They 
were  forbidden  to  speak  or  to  preach  to  the  Indians 
except  in  Portuguese;  the  soldiers  were  quartered  in 
the  Jesuit  settlements,  and  were  instructed  to  treat 
the  natives  with  especial  violence  and  brutality. 

In  1754  a  council  was  held  in  Lisbon  to  settle  the 
question  about  expelling  the  Society  from  the  missions 
of  Maranhao.  The  order  was  held  up  temporarily  by 
the  queen;  but  when  she  died,  a  despatch  was  sent  in 
June  1755  ordering  their  immediate  withdrawal  from 
all  "temporal  and  civil  government  of  the  missions." 
The  instructions  stated  that  it  was  "  in  order  that 
God  might  be  better  served."  Unfortunately  the 
bishop  of  the  place  co-operated  with  Carvalho  in 
everything  that  was  proposed.  He  suppressed  one  of 
the  colleges,  restricted  the  number  of  Fathers  in  the 
others,  to  twelve,  and  sent  the  rest  back  to  Portugal; 
and  in  order  to  excite  the  settlers  against  the  Society, 
he  had  the  Bull  of  Benedict  XIV  which  condemned 
Indian  slavery  read  from  the  pulpits,  proclaiming  that 
it  had  been  inspired  by  the  Jesuits.  Meantime,  in 
the  reports  home,  the  insignificant  Indian  villages  where 


452  The  Jesuits 

they  labored  were  magnified  into  splendid  cities  and 
towns  all  owned  by  the  Society;  two  pieces  of  cannon 
which  had  never  fired  a  ball  were  described  as  a  whole 
park  of  artillery,  and  a  riot  among  the  troops  was  set 
down  as  a  rebellion  excited  by  the  Jesuits. 

The  first  three  Fathers  to  be  banished  from  Brazil 
were  Jose,  Hundertpfund  and  da  Cruz.  Jos6  was  a 
royal  appointee  sent  out  to  determine  the  boundary 
line  between  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  American 
possessions.  But  that  did  not  trouble  Pombal;  nor 
did  the  German  nationality  of  Hundertpfund,  nor  did 
he  deign  to  state  the  precise  nature  of  their  offenses. 
A  fourth  victim  named  Ballister  had  had  the  bad 
taste  to  preach  on  the  text:  "  Make  for  yourself 
friends  of  the  Mammon  of  iniquity."  He  was  forth- 
with accused  of  attacking  one  of  Carvalho's  com- 
mercial enterprises,  and  promptly  ordered  out  of  the 
country.  Again,  when  some  mercantile  rivals  sent 
a  petition  to  the  king  against  Carvalho's  monopolies, 
Father  Fonseca  was  charged  with  prompting  it,  and 
he  was  outlawed  though  absolutely  innocent.  And 
so  it  went  on.  Carvalho's  brother  was  instructed  to 
invent  any  kind  of  an  excuse  to  increase  the  number 
of  these  expatriations. 

While  these  outrages  were  being  perpetrated  in 
the  colonies,  Lisbon's  historic  earthquake  of  1755 
occurred.  The  city  was  literally  laid  in  ruins.  Thou- 
sands of  people  were  instantly  killed;  and  while  other 
thousands  lay  struggling  in  the  ruins,  the  rising  flood 
of  the  Tagus  and  a  deluge  of  rain  completed  the  disaster. 
Singularly  enough,  Carvalho's  house  escaped  the 
general  wreck;  and  the  foolish  king  considered  that 
exception  to  be  a  Divine  intervention  in  behalf  of 
his  great  minister,  and  possibly,  on  that  account, 
left  him  unchecked  in  the  fury  which  even  the  awful 
calamity  which  had  fallen  on  his  country  did  not  at 


Pombal  453 

all  moderate.  The  Jesuits  were  praised  by  both 
king  and  patriarch  for  their  heroic  devotion  both 
during  and  after  the  great  disaster,  but  those  com- 
mendations only  infuriated  Pombal  the  more.  When 
one  of  the  Fathers,  the  holy  Malagrida,  had  dared 
to  say  in  the  pulpit  that  the  earthquake  was  a  punish- 
ment for  the  vice  that  was  rampant  in  the  capital, 
Pombal  regarded  it  as  a  reflection  on  his  administra- 
tion; and  the  offender,  though  seventy  years  old  and 
universally  regarded  as  a  saint,  was  banished  from 
the  city  as  inciting  the  people  to  rebellion. 

However,  the  furious  minister  meted  out  similar 
treatment  to  others,  even  to  his  political  friends. 
Thus,  although  the  British  parliament  had  voted 
£40,000  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers,  besides  giving  a 
personal  gift  to  the  king  and  sending  ships  with  car- 
goes of  food  for  the  people,  Pombal  immediately 
ran  up  the  tax  on  foreign  imports,  for  he  was  financially 
interested  in  domestic  productions.  Even  in  doling 
out  provisions  to  the  famishing  populace,  he  was  so 
parsimonious  that  riots  occurred,  whereupon  he  hanged 
those  who  complained.  The  author  of  the  "  Vita  " 
(I,  1 06)  vouches  for  the  fact  that  at  one  time  there 
were  three  hundred  gibbets  erected  in  various  parts  of 
Lisbon.  The  Jesuit  confessors  at  the  court  were 
especially  obnoxious  to  him  and  he  dismissed  them  all 
with  an  injunction  never  to  set  foot  in  the  royal 
precincts  again.  The  anger  of  their  royal  penitents 
did  not  restrain  him,  so  absolute  was  his  power  both 
then  and  afterwards.  The  plea  was  that  the  priests 
were  plotters  against  the  king.  To  increase  that 
impression  he  pointed  out  to  his  majesty  the  number 
of  offenders  against  him;  all  members  of  the  detested 
Order  who  were  coming  back  in  every  ship  from 
Brazil.  The  General  of  the  Society,  Father  Centurioni, 
wrote  to  the  king  pleading  the  innocence  of  the 


454  The  Jesuits 

victims ;  but  the  letter  never  got  further  than  the  minis- 
ter.    The  king  did  not  even  know  it  had  been  sent. 

The  next  step  in  this  persecution  was  to  publish 
the  famous  pamphlet  entitled:  "A  Brief  Account  of 
the  Republic  which  the  Jesuits  have  established  in 
the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  dominions  of  the  New 
World,  and  of  the  War  which  they  have  carried  on 
against  the  armies  of  the  two  Crowns;  all  extracted 
from  the  Register  of  the  Commissaries  and  Plenipotenti- 
aries, and  from  other  documents."  A  copy  was  sent  to 
every  bishop  of  the  country ;  to  the  cardinals  in  Rome, 
and  to  all  the  courts  of  Europe.  Pombal  actually  spent 
70,000  crowns  to  print  and  spread  the  work  of  which  he 
himself  was  generally  credited  with  being  the  author. 
In  South  America  it  was  received  with  derision;  in 
Europe  mostly  with  disgust.  Sad  to  say,  Acciajuoli, 
the  Apostolic  nuncio  at  Lisbon,  believed  the  Brazilian 
stories ;  but  he  changed  his  mind,  when  on  the  morning 
of  June  15,  1760,  just  as  he  was  about  to  say  Mass,  he 
received  a  note  ordering  him  in  the  name  of  the  king 
to  leave  the  city  at  once,  and  the  kingdom  within 
four  days;  adding  that  to  preserve  him  from  insult  a 
military  escort  would  conduct  him  to  the  frontier. 
Other  publications  of  the  same  tenor  followed  the 
"  Brief  Account."  One  especially  became  notorious. 
It  was:  "  Letters  of  the  Portuguese  Minister  to  the 
Minister  of  Spain  on  the  Jesuitical  Empire,  the  Republic 
of  Maranhao ;  the  history  of  Nicholas  I."  The  Nicholas 
in  question  was  a  Father  named  Plantico.  To  carry 
out  the  story  of  his  having  been  crowned  king  or 
Emperor  of  Paraguay,  coins  with  his  effigy  were 
actually  struck  and  circulated  throughout  Europe. 
Unfortunately  for  the  fraud,  none  of  the  coins  were 
ever  seen  in  Paraguay  where  they  ought  to  have  been 
current.  Moreover,  as  Plantico  was  transported  with 
the  other  Jesuits  of  Brazil,  he  would  have  been  hanged 


Pombal  455 

on  his  arrival  in  Portugal,  if  he  had  tried  to  set  up  a 
kingdom  of  his  own  in  Paraguay.  On  the  contrary, 
he  went  off  to  his  native  country  of  Croatia,  and  was 
Rector  of  the  College  of  Grosswardein  when  the 
general  suppression  of  the  Society  took  place.  Fred- 
erick II  and  d'Alembert  used  to  joke  with  each  other 
about  "  King  Nicholas  I  ";  and  in  Spain,  that  and  the 
other  libels  were  officially  denounced  and  their  cir- 
culation prohibited. 

As  for  Carvalho,  these  hideous  imaginings  of  his 
brain  became  realities ;  and  the  list  of  Jesuitical  horrors 
which  his  ambassador  at  Rome  repeated  to  the  Pope, 
all,  as  he  alleged,  for  the  sake  of  the  Church,  almost 
suggest  that  Pombal  was  a  madman.  Long  extracts  of 
the  document  may  be  found  in  de  Ravignan  and  Weld, 
but  it  will  be  sufficient  here  to  mention  a  few  of  the 
charges.  They  are,  for  instance,  "  seditious  machina- 
tions against  every  government  of  Europe;  scandals  in 
their  missions  so  horrible  that  they  cannot  be  related 
without  extreme  indecency;  rebellion  against  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff;  the  accumulation  of  vast  wealth 
and  the  use  of  immense  political  power;  gross  moral 
corruption  of  individual  members  of  the  Order ;  abandon- 
ment of  even  the  externals  of  religion;  the  daily  and 
public  commission  of  enormous  crimes;  opposing  the 
king  with  great  armies;  inculcating  in  the  Indian 
mind  an  implacable  hatred  of  all  white  men  who  are  not 
Jesuits;  starting  insurrections  in  Uruguay  s©  as  to 
prevent  the  execution  of  the  treaty  of  limits ;  atrociously 
calumniating  the  king;  embroiling  the  courts  of  Spain 
and  Portugal;  creating  sedition  by  preaching  in  the 
capital  against  the  commercial  companies  of  the 
minister;  taking  advantage  of  the  earthquake  to  attain 
their  detestable  ends;  surpassing  Machiavelli  in  their 
diabolical  plots;  inventing  prophecies  of  new  disasters, 
such  as  warnings  of  subterranean  fires  and  invasions 


456  The  Jesuits 

of  the  sea;  calumniating  the  venerable  Palafox;  com- 
mitting crimes  worse  than  those  of  the  Knights 
Templars,  etc." 

Unfortunately,  Cardinal  Passionei  who  was  un- 
friendly to  the  Society,  exercised  great  power  at 
Rome  at  that  time.  He  was  so  antagonistic  that  he 
would  not  allow  a  Jesuit  book  in  the  library,  which  made 
d'Alembert  say:  "  I  am  sorry  for  his  library."  He 
also  refused  to  condemn  the  work  of  the  scandalous 
ex-monk  Norbert,  who  was  in  the  pay  of  Carvalho. 
To  make  matters  worse,  Benedict  XIV  was  then  at 
the  point  of  death.  And  a  short  time  previously, 
yielding  to  Carvalho's  importunities,  he  had  appointed 
Cardinal  Saldanha,  who  was  Carvalho's  tool,  to  investi- 
gate the  complaints  and  to  report  back  to  Rome,  with- 
out however  taking  any  action  on  the  premises.  The 
dying  Pontiff  was  unaware  of  the  intimacy  of  Saldanha 
with  the  man  in  Portugal  or  he  would  not  have  ordered 
him  in  the  Brief  of  appointment  to  "  follow  the  paths  of 
gentleness  and  mildness,  in  dealing  with  an  Order  which 
has  always  been  of  the  greatest  edification  to  the  whole 
world;  lest  by  doing  otherwise  he  would  diminish  the 
esteem  which,  up  to  that  time,  they  have  justly  acquired 
as  a  reward  of  their  diligence.  Their  holy  Institute 
had  given  many  illustrious  men  to  the  Church  whose 
teachings  they  have  not  hesitated  to  confirm  with 
their  blood. ' '  As  the  Pope  died  in  the  following  month, 
Saldanha  made  light  of  the  instructions.  His  usual 
boast  was  that  "  the  will  of  the  king  was  the  rule  of  his 
actions;  and  he  was  under  such  obligations  to  his 
majesty,  that  he  would  not  hesitate  to  throw  himself 
from  the  window  if  such  were  the  royal  pleasure." 

It  was  currently  reported  in  Lisbon,  says  Weld 
(130),  that  the  office  of  visitor  had  been  first  offered 
to  Francis  of  the  Annunciation,  an  Augustinian  who 
had  reformed  the  University  of  Coimbra;  and  on 


Pombal  457 

his  refusal  he  was  sent  to  prison  where  he  ended  his 
days.  But  the  obliging  Saldanha  saw  in  it  an  oppor- 
tunity for  still  further  advancement;  he  accepted  the 
work  and  performed  it  in  accordance  with  the  wishes 
of  Pombal.  Meantime,  new  dungeons  were  being  made 
in  the  fortress  of  Jonquiera  in  which  the  offending 
Jesuits  were  to  be  buried.  Saldanha  began  his  work 
as  Inquisitor  on  May  31,  by  going  with  great  pomp 
to  the  Jesuit  Church  of  St.  Roch.  Seated  on  the  throne 
in  the  sanctuary,  he  gave  his  hand  to  be  kissed  by  all 
the  religious.  When  the  provincial  knelt  before  him, 
the  cardinal  told  him  to  have  confidence  —  he  would 
act  with  clemency.  When  the  ceremony  was  over, 
he  departed  abruptly  without  asking  any  questions 
or  making  any  examination.  But  a  few  days  after- 
ward, the  provincial  received  a  letter  bearing  the  date 
May  15,  that  is  sixteen  days  before  this  visit  to  the 
Church,  declaring  that  the  Fathers  in  Portugal  and  in 
its  dominions  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  were,  on  the 
fullest  information,  found  to  be  guilty  of  a  worldly 
traffic  which  was  a  disgrace  to  the  ecclesiastical  state; 
and  they  were  commanded  under  pain  of  excommuni- 
cation to  desist  from  such  business  transactions  at 
the  very  hour  the  notification  was  made.  The 
language  employed  in  the  letter  which  was  immediately 
spread  throughout  the  country  was  insulting  and 
defamatory  to  the  highest  degree. 

All  the  procurators  were  then  compelled  to  hand 
over  their  books  to  the  government.  And  when  the 
horrified  people,  who  knew  there  was  nothing  back 
of  it  all  but  Carvalho's  hatred,  manifested  their  dis- 
content, it  was  ascribed  to  the  Jesuits.  Hence  on 
June  6,  the  cardinal  patriarch,  at  the  instigation  of  the 
prime  minister,  suspended  them  all  from  the  function 
of  preaching  and  hearing  confessions  throughout  the 
patriarchate.  The  cardinal  had,  at  first,  demurred, 


458  The  Jesuits 

for  he  knew  the  Jesuits  in  Lisbon  to  be  the  very  reverse 
of  Saldanha's  description  of  them,  and  he  therefore 
demanded  a  regular 'trial.  Whereupon  Carvalho  flew 
into  such  a  rage  that  out  of  sheer  terror,  and  after 
a  few  hours'  struggle,  he  issued  the  cruel  order.  The 
poor  cardinal,  who  was  an  ardent  friend  and  admirer 
of  the  Society,  was  so  horrified  at  what  he  had  done 
that  he  fell  into  a  fever,  and  died  within  a  month. 
Before  he  received  the  last  sacraments,  he  made  a 
public  declaration  that  the  Society  was  innocent,  and 
he  drew  up  a  paper  to  that  effect;  but  Carvalho  never 
let  it  see  the  light.  When  the  Archbishop  of  Evora 
heard  that  the  dying  man  had  shed  tears  over  his 
weakness,  he  said:  "  Tears  are  not  enough.  He 
should  have  shed  the  last  drop  of  his  blood." 

Saldanha  was  made  patriarch  in  the  deceased 
prelate's  place;  and  though  his  office  of  visitor  had 
ceased  ipso  facto  on  the  death  of  the  Pope,  he  continued 
to  exercise  its  functions  nevertheless.  He  appointed 
Bulhoens,  the  Bishop  of  Para,  a  notorious  adherent  of 
Carvalho,  to  be  his  delegate  in  Brazil.  Bulhoens 
first  examined  the  Jesuits  of  Para,  but  could  find 
nothing  against  them.  He  then  proceeded  to  Mar- 
anhao;  but  the  bishop  of  that  place  left  in  disgust; 
and  the  governor  warned  Bulhoens  that  if  he  persisted, 
the  city  would  be  in  an  uproar.  Not  being  able  to  effect 
anything,  he  asked  the  Bishop  of  Bahia  to  undertake 
the  work  of  investigation.  The  invitation  was 
promptly  accepted;  and  all  the  superiors  were  ordered 
to  show  their  books  under  pain  of  excommunication. 
They  readily  complied,  and  no  fault  was  found  with  the 
accounts.  He  then  instituted  a  regular  tribunal; 
received  the  depositions  of  seventy-five  witnesses, 
among  them  Saldanha's  own  brother  who  had  lived 
twenty-five  years  in  Maranhao.  Next  he  examined  the 
tax  commissioner,  through  whose  hands  all  contracts 


Pombal  459 

and  bills  of  exchange  had  to  pass;  and  that  official 
affirmed  under  oath  that  he  had  never  known  or 
heard  of  any  business  transactions  having  been  carried 
on  by  Jesuits.  The  result  was  that  the  courageous 
bishop  declared  "  it  would  be  an  offence  against  God 
and  his  conscience  and  against  the  king's  majesty  to 
condemn  the  Fathers."  When  his  report  was  for- 
warded to  Portugal,  Carvalho  ordered  the  confiscation 
of  his  property;  expelled  him  from  his  palace,  and 
declared  his  see  vacant.  The  valiant  prelate  passed 
the  rest  of  his  days  in  seclusion,  supported  by  the 
alms  of  the  faithful. 

In  September  1758,  a  charge  was  trumped  up  in 
Lisbon  in  a  most  tortuous  fashion,  based  on  the  alleged 
discovery  of  a  plot  to  assassinate  the  king.  Those 
chiefly  involved  were  the  Duke  de  Averio  and  the 
Marquis  de  Tavora,  with  his  wife,  his  two  sons,  his 
two  brothers  and  his  two  sons-in-law,  all  of  whom 
were  seized  at  midnight  on  December  12.  The 
marchioness  and  her  daughter-in-law  were  carried  off 
to  a  convent  in  their  night-dresses;  the  men  of  the 
family,  to  dens  formerly  occupied  by  the  wild  beasts 
of  the  city  menagerie.  De  Aveiro,  who  was  supposed 
to  be  the  assassin-in-chief,  was  not  taken  until  next 
day.  Several  others  were  included  in  this  general 
round-up,  some  of  them  for  having  asserted  that  the 
whole  conspiracy  was  a  manufactured  affair.  At  the 
same  time,  some  of  the  domestic  servants  of  the 
marquis,  probably  for  having  offered  resistance  at  the 
time  of  the  arrest,  were  put  to  death  so  that  they  could 
tell  no  tales.  Not  being  able  to  have  the  accused 
parties  tried  before  any  regularly  constituted  tribunal, 
because  of  the  lack  of  evidence,  Carvalho  drew  up  a 
sentence  of  condemnation  himself,  and  presented  it  to 
a  new  court  which  he  had  just  established,  called  the 
inconfidenza,  and  demanded  the  signatures  of  the  judges 


460  The  Jesuits 

who  were  all  his  creatures.  After  being  stormed  at 
for  a  while,  all,  with  one  exception,  put  their  names 
to  the  paper.  Then,  as  by  the  law  of  the  land  no 
nobleman  could  be  condemned  to  death  except  by  his 
peers,  he  constituted  himself  as  a  tribunal,  along  with 
his  secretary  of  the  Navy  and  the  secretary  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  neither  of  whom  had  any  difficulty  in  com- 
plying with  the  wish  of  their  master. 

On  January  n,  1759,  three  of  the  noblemen  involved, 
Aveiro,  Tavora  and  Antongia,  were  led  out  to  execution 
before  the  king's  palace.  Vast  multitudes  had 
assembled  in  the  public  square;  and  to  ensure  order, 
fresh  regiments  had  been  summoned  from  other  parts 
of  the  kingdom.  A  riot  was  feared,  for  the  Tavoras 
were  among  the  noblest  families  of  the  realm.  The 
accused  had  not  even  been  defended  and  had  been 
interrogated  on  the  rack.  The  execution  was  most 
expeditious,  and  the  heads  of  the  three  victims  quickly 
rolled  in  the  dust.  That  night,  the  marchioness  was 
taken  from  the  convent  to  the  new  dungeons  in  the 
fort;  and  on  January  12,  she  heard  the  sentence  of 
death  passed  on  her  by  Carvalho  himself  who  was 
both  judge  and  accuser.  The  scaffold  was  erected  in 
the  square  of  Belem;  and  long  before  daylight  of 
January  13  an  immense  multitude  had  gathered  to 
witness  the  hideous  spectacle.  The  marchioness  ad- 
vanced and  took  her  seat  in  the  chair.  The  axe 
quickly  descended  on  her  neck  —  and  all  was  over. 
She  was  despatched  in  this  hurried  fashion  because 
the  interference  of  the  king  was  feared.  Indeed,  the 
messenger  arrived  just  when  the  head  had  been  severed 
from  the  body.  The  two  sons  of  the  marchioness  and. 
her  son-in-law  were  then  stretched  on  the  rack  and 
strangled.  The  father  of  the  family,  the  old  marquis 
followed  next  in  order.  As  a  mark  of  clemency,  his 
torture  was  brief  but  effective.  Four  others  were  then 


Pombal  461 

executed;  fire  was  set  to  the  gibbet;  and  its  blood- 
stained timbers  along  with  the  bodies  of  the  victims 
were  reduced  to  ashes  and  thrown  into  the  Tagus. 
This  was  not  a  scene  in  a  village  of  savages,  but  in 
a  great  European  capital  which  had  just  passed  through 
a  terrible  visitation  of  God  but  apparently  had  not 
understood  its  meaning.  Carvalho  was  thirsting  for 
more  blood,  but  the  king  held  him  back;  so  he  contented 
himself  with  destroying  the  palaces  of  the  Aveiras  and 
Tavoras;  sprinkling  the  sites  with  salt;  forbidding 
anyone  to  bear  the  names  hitherto  so  illustrious,  and 
even  effacing  them  from  the  monuments  and  the 
public  archives.  He  was  not  allowed  to  commit  any 
more  official  murders  for  the  moment;  but  at  least 
he  had  thousands  who  were  dying  in  his  underground 
dungeons. 

What  had  the  Jesuits  to  do  with  all  this?  Nothing 
whatever.  They  were  accused  of  being  the  spiritual 
advisers  of  the  Tavora  family  which  it  was  impossible 
to  disprove,  because  though  the  persons  implicated  by 
the  accusation  were  all  arrested  on  the  nth,  sentence 
of  death  had  been  already  passed  on  the  pth.  There 
were  twenty-nine  paragraphs  in  the  indictment.  The 
twenty-second  said  that  "  even  if  the  exuberant  and 
conclusive  proofs  already  adduced  did  not  exist,  the 
presumption  of  the  law  would  suffice  to  condemn  such 
monsters."  Of  course,  no  lawyer  in  the  world  could 
plead  against  such  a  charge,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that 
in  the  Brief  of  Suppression  of  the  whole  Society  by 
Clement  XIV  which  brings  together  all  the  accusations 
against  it,  there  is  no  mention  whatsoever,  even 
inferentially,  of  any  conspiracy  of  the  Jesuits  against 
the  life  of  the  King  of  Portugal.  Moreover,  the 
Inquisition  and  all  the  Bishops  of  Spain  judged  this 
Portuguese  horror  at  its  proper  value,  when  on  May  3 , 
1759  they  put  their  official  stamp  of  condemnation 


462  The  Jesuits 

on  the  pamphlets  with  which  the  whole  of  Europe 
was  flooded  immediately  after  Pombal's  infamous  act. 
They  denounced  the  charges  one  by  one  as  "  designed 
to  foment  discord,  to  disturb  the  peace  and  tran- 
quillity of  souls  and  consciences,  and  especially  to 
discredit  the  holy  Society  of  Jesus  and  religious  who 
laudably  labor  in  it  to  the  benefit  of  the  Church; 
as  is  known  throughout  the  world."  Over  and  over 
again  as  each  book  is  specifically  anathematised,  the 
"  holy  Society  of  Jesus  "  is  spoken  of  with  commend- 
ation and  praise.  The  condemned  publications  were 
then  burnt  in  the  market  place.  That  exculpation 
ought  to  have  been  sufficient,  coming  as  it  did  not 
only  from  all  the  Spanish  bishops  but  from  the  Inqui- 
sition, which  from  the  very  beginning  had  been  uni- 
formly suspicious  of  everything  Jesuitical.  Against 
this  utterance  Pombal  was  powerless  for  it  was  the 
voice  of  another  nation. 

When  the  year  1759  began,  three  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous and  most  venerable  Fathers  of  Portugal  were 
in  jail  under  sentence  of  death.  But  neither  the  king 
nor  Carvalho  dared  to  carry  out  the  sentence  of 
execution.  Something  however  had  to  be  done;  and 
therefore  a  royal  edict,  which  had  been  written  long 
before,  was  issued.  After  reciting  all  that  had  been 
previously  said  about  Brazil,  etc.  it  declared  that 
"  these  religious  being  corrupt  and  deplorably  fallen 
away  from  their  holy  institute,  and  rendered  mani- 
festly incapable  by  such  abominable  and  inveterate 
vices  to  return  to  its  observances,  must  be  properly 
and  effectually  banished,  denaturalized,  proscribed 
and  expelled  from  all  his  majesty's  dominions,  as 
notorious  rebels,  traitors,  adversaries  and  aggressors 
of  his  royal  person  and  realm;  as  well  as  for  the  public 
peace  and  the  common  good  of  his  subjects;  and  it 
is  ordered  under  the  irremissible  pain  of  death,  that 


Pombal  463 

no  person,  of  whatever  state  or  condition,  is  to  admit 
them  into  any  of  his  possessions  or  hold  any  communica- 
tion with  them  by  word  or  writing,  even  though  they 
should  return  into  these  states  in  a  different  garb  or 
should  have  entered  another  order,  unless  with  the 
King's  permission."  It  is  sad  to  have  to  record  that 
the  Patriarch  of  Lisbon  endorsed  the  invitation  to  the 
Jesuits  to  avail  themselves  of  this  royal  clemency. 

The  procurators  of  the  missions  who  occupied  a 
temporary  house  in  Lisbon  had  been  already  carried 
off  to  jail;  and  their  money,  chalices,  sacred  vessels, 
all  of  which  were  intended  for  Asia  and  Brazil,  were 
confiscated.  The  Exodus  proper  began  at  the  College 
of  Elvas  on  September  i.  At  night-fall  a  squadron 
of  cavalry  arrived;  and  taking  the  inmates  prisoners, 
marched  them  off  without  any  intimation  of  whither 
they  were  going.  On  the  following  day,  Sunday, 
they  were  lodged  in  a  miserable  shed,  exhausted 
though  they  were  by  the  journey,  with  nothing  but  a 
few  crusts  to  eat,  after  having  suffered  intensely  from 
the  heat  all  day  long.  They  were  not  even  allowed  to 
go  to  Mass.  During  the  next  night  and  the  following 
day,  they  continued  their  weary  tramp  and  at  last 
arrived  at  Evora.  There  the  young  men  were  left 
at  the  college,  and  the  sixty-nine  Professed  were 
compelled  to  walk  for  six  consecutive  days  till  they 
reached  the  Tagus.  Many  were  old  and  decrepit  and 
one  of  them  lost  his  mind  on  the  journey.  When  they 
reached  the  river,  they  were  put  in  open  boats  and  ex- 
posed all  day  long  to  the  burning  sun,  with  nothing  to 
eat  or  drink.  They  were  then  transferred  to  a  ship 
which  had  been  waiting  for  them  since  the  month  of 
April.  It  was  then  late  in  September. 

Other  exiles  soon  joined  them,  after  going  through 
similar  experiences,  until  there  were  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three  in  the  same  vessel.  They  were  all  kept 


464  The  Jesuits 

in  the  hold  till  they  were  out  of  sight  of  land.  There 
was  no  accommodation  for  them:  the  food  was  insuffi- 
cient; the  water  was  foul;  there  were  no  dishes,  so  that 
six  or  seven  had  to  sit  around  a  tin  can,  and  take  out 
what  they  could  with  a  wooden  spoon,  and  the  same 
vessel  had  to  serve  for  the  water  they  drank.  The 
orders  were  to  stop  at  no  port  until  they  reached 
Civita  Vecchia.  However,  after  passing  the  Straits 
of  Gibraltar,  it  became  evident  that  unless  the  captain 
wanted  to  carry  a  cargo  of  corpses  to  Italy,  he  must 
take  in  supplies  somewhere:  for  many  of  the  victims 
were  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  age.  There  were  even 
some  octogenarians  among  them.  Hence,  on  reaching 
Alicante,  in  Spain,  one  of  the  Fathers  went  ashore. 
There  was  a  college  of  the  Society  in  that  city;  and  as 
soon  as  the  news  spread  of  the  arrival  of  the  prisoners, 
the  people  rushed  to  the  shore  to  supply  their  wants, 
but  the  messenger  was  the  only  one  allowed  to  be  seen. 
They  then  sailed  away  from  Alicante.  Off  Corsica,  a 
storm  caught  them  and  so  delayed  their  progress  that 
a  stop  had  to  be  made  at  Spezia  for  more  food.  At 
last,  on  October  24,  more  than  a  month  after  they  had 
left  Lisbon,  they  were  flung  haggard,  emaciated  and 
exhausted  on  the  shores  of  the  Papal  States  at  Civita 
Vecchia.  Of  course,  they  were  received  by  the  people 
there  with  unbounded  affection;  and  as  Father  Weld 
relates  "  none  exceeded  the  Dominican  Fathers  in 
their  tender  solicitude  for  the  sufferers.  A  marble 
slab  in  their  church  records  their  admiration  for  these 
confessors  of  the  Faith  with  whom  the  sons  of  St. 
Dominic  declared  they  were  devinctissimi  —  "closely 
bound  to  them  in  affection." 

On  September  29,  troops  surrounded  the  College  of 
Coimbra.  The  astonished  populace  was  informed 
that  it  was  because  »the  Fathers  had  been  righting; 
that  some  were  already  killed  and  others  wounded; 


Pombal  465 

and  the  soldiers  had  been  summoned  to  prevent 
further  disorders.  That  night  amid  pouring  rain,  the 
tramp  of  horses'  hoofs  was  heard;  and  as  the  people 
crowded  to  the  windows,  they  saw  the  venerable  men 
of  the  college  led  away  between  squads  of  cavalry  as 
if  they  were  brigands  or  prisoners  of  war.  They 
arrived  at  the  Tagus  on  October  7,  where  others  were 
already  waiting.  They  numbered  in  all  121,  and 
were  crowded  into  two  small  ships  which  were  to 
carry  them  into  exile.  They  had  scarcely  room  to 
move.  Yet,  when  they  arrived  at  Genoa,  they  were 
all  packed  into  one  of  the  boats.  At  Leghorn,  they 
were  kept  for  a  whole  month  in  close  confinement  on 
board  the  ship.  When  they  started  out,  they  were 
buffeted  by  storms,  and  not  until  January  4,  1760  did 
they  reach  the  papal  territory.  They  were  in  a  more 
wretched  state  of  filth  and  emaciation  than  their 
predecessors. 

These  prisoners  were  the  special  criminals  of  the 
Society,  namely  —  the  professed  Fathers.  The  other 
Jesuits  were  officially  admitted  to  be  without  reproach 
and  were  exhorted,  both  by  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  to  abandon  the  Order  and  be  dispensed 
from  their  vows.  As  these  non-Professed  numbered 
at  least  three-fourths  of  the  whole  body,  the  difficult 
problem  presents  itself  of  explaining  how  the  Professed 
who  are  looked  up  to  by  the  rest  of  the  Society  for 
precept  and  example  should  be  monsters  of  iniquity  and 
yet  could  train  the  remaining  three-fourths  of  the 
members  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  models  of 
every  virtue. 

Pombal  was  convinced  that  he  could  separate  the 
youth  of  the  Society  from  their  elders;  and  he  was 
extremely  anxious  to  do  so,  because  of  the  family 
connections  of  many  of  them,  and  because  of  the  loss 
to  the  nation  at  one  stroke  of  so  much  ability  and 

30 


466  The  Jesuits 

talent.  But  he  failed  egregiously.  They  were  all 
gathered  in  the  colleges  of  Coimbra  and  Evora.  No 
seclusion  was  observed.  Everybody  was  free  to  visit 
them  from  the  world  outside;  and  inducements  of 
every  kind  were  held  out  to  them  to  abandon  the 
Society:  family  affection,  worldly  ambition,  etc.— 
but  without  avail.  They  had  no  regular  superior,  so 
they  elected  a  fourth-year  theologian  who  had  just 
been  ordained  a  priest.  Another  was  made  minister; 
and  a  third,  master  of  novices.  The  house  was  kept 
in  excellent  order;  the  religious  discipline  was  perfect 
and  the  exercises  of  the  community  went  on  with  as 
much  regularity  as  if  nothing  were  happening.  Pombal 
sent  commissioner  after  commissioner  to  shake  the 
constancy  of  the  young  men,  but  only  two  of  the 
tempted  ones  weakened.  "  Who  is  their  superior?  " 
he  asked  one  day  in  a  rage.  The  answer  was: 
"  Joseph  ,  Carvalho  —  your  namesake  and  relative." 
On  October  20,  a  letter  from  the  cardinal  was  read 
in  both  houses.  He  expressed  his  astonishment  that 
these  young  Jesuits  did  not  avail  themselves  of  the 
royal  favor  to  desert;  and  he  warned  them  that  they 
were  not  suffering  for  their  faith,  and  that  "  their 
refusal  of  His  Majesty's  offer  to  release  them  from  their 
vows  was  not  virtuous  constancy  but  seditious 
obstinacy." 

Finally,  October  24  was  fixed  for  their  departure, 
and  notice  was  given  that  they  could  not  expect  to 
go  to  any  civilized  land,  but  would  probably  be  dropped 
on  some  desolate  island  off  the  African  coast.  That 
shook  the  resolution  of  two  of  the  band,  but  the  rest 
stood  firm.  In  the  morning,  all  went  to  Holy  Com- 
munion and  at  an  hour  before  sunset,  the  word  was 
given  to  start.  They  sang  a  Te  Deum  and  then  set 
out  —  130  in  all.  They  were  preceded  by  a  troop  of 
cavalry;  a  line  of  foot  soldiers  marched  on  either  side; 


Pombal  467 

while  here  and  there  torches  threw  their  glare  over  this 
grim  nocturnal  procession.  It  took  them  four  days 
to  reach  Oporto,  where  they  met  their  brethren  from 
Braganza  and  Braza.  There  were  only  ten  from  the 
former  place,  but  sixty  soldiers  had  been  detailed  to 
guard  them.  Indeed,  the  troopers  from  Braza  had 
to  keep  the  crowds  back  with  draw^i  swords,  so  eager 
were  the  people  along  the  road  to  express  their  sym- 
pathy. At  Oporto  the  young  heroes  had  to  witness 
the  desertion  of  four  Professed  Fathers;  but  that  did 
not  weaken  their  resolution.  They  were  all  crammed 
into  three  small  craft,  but  the  weather  was  too  stormy 
to  leave  the  port;  and  there  they  remained  a  whole 
week,  packed  so  close  together  that  there  was  scarcely 
room  to  lie  side  by  side.  The  air  became  so  foul  that 
it  was  doubtful  if  they  could  survive.  Even  their 
guards  took  sick,  and,  at  last,  a  number  of  the  prisoners 
were  transferred  to  a  fort  in  the  harbor. 

At  last  to  the  number  of  223  they  sailed  down  the 
Tagus.  One  of  them  died,  and  his  companions  sang 
the  Office  of  the  Dead  over  him  and  buried  him  in  the 
sea.  When  the  ship  did  not  roll  too  much,  Mass  was 
said  and  they  went  to  Communion.  All  the  exercises 
that  are  customary  in  religious  houses  were  scrupulously 
performed,  and  the  Church  festivals  were  observed  as 
if  they  were  a  community  at  home.  They  were 
quarantined  two  weeks  at  Genoa  without  being  per- 
mitted to  go  ashore.  Then  another  scholastic  died, 
and  they  found  that  his  earthly  goods  consisted  of 
nothing  but  a  few  bits  of  linen,  that  must  have  been 
foul  by  this  time,  besides  a  discipline  and  a  hair  shirt. 
They  cast  anchor  at  Civita  Vecchia  on  February  7, 
having  left  inhospitable  Portugal  in  October. 

The  band  from  Evora  to  the  number  of  ninety- 
eight,  of  whom  only  three  were  priests,  had  not  such  a 
rude  experience  except  in  the  distress  of  seeing  eome 


468  The  Jesuits 

deserters,  among  them  two  Professed  Fathers.  The 
officer  in  charge  of  the  ship,  unlike  most  of  the  govern- 
ment employees,  was  tender  and  kind  to  them.  How 
could  he  have  been  otherwise?  His  name  was  de 
Britto  —  the  same  as  that  of  the  Portuguese  martyr  in 
India.  It  meant  the  loss  of  his  position,  perhaps, 
but  what  did  he  care?  When  they  reached  Lisbon, 
the  nineteen  who  had  been  separated  from  the  first 
detachment  to  be  kept  in  jail  came  aboard,  and  the 
little  band  numbered  115  all  told,  when  the  ship 
hoisted  anchor  and  made  for  the  sea.  They  reached 
Civita  Vecchia  where  the  two  happy  troops  of  valiant 
young  Jesuits  met  in  each  others  arms.  Their  number 
was  then  336.  They  were  distributed  among  the 
various  establishments  of  Italy,  the  novices  being 
sent  to  Sant'  Andrea  in  Rome.  Two  cardinals  and  a 
papal  nuncio  who  were  making  their  retreat  in  the 
house  at  the  time  insisted  on  serving  them  at  table, 
while  the  Pope  sent  a  message  to  the  General  to  say: 
"  These  young  men  have  reflected  great  honor  on  the 
Society  and  have  shown  how  well  they  have  been 
trained." 

The  fury  of  Pombal  was  not  yet  sated.  Not  an 
island  of  the  Atlantic,  not  a  station  in  Africa  or  India, 
not  a  mission  in  the  depths  of  the  forests  of  America 
that  was  not  searched  and  looted  by  his  commissioners, 
who  ruthlessly  expelled  the  devoted  missionaries  who 
were  found  there.  Men  venerable  for  age  and  acquire- 
ments were  given  over  to  brutal  soldiers  who  were 
ordered  to  shoot  them  if  any  attempt  at  escape  was 
made.  They  were  dragged  hundreds  of  miles  through 
the  wildest  of  regions,  over  mountains,  through  raging 
torrents,  amid  driving  storms;  they  were  starved  and 
had  nothing  but  the  bare  ground  on  which  to  rest; 
they  were  searched  again  and  again  as  if  their  rags 
held  treasures;  were  made  to  answer  the  roll  call  twice 


Pombal  469 

a  day  like  convicts  in  jail ;  and  then  tossed  in  the  holds 
of  crazy  ill-provisioned  ships  with  no  place  to  rest 
their  weary  heads,  except  on  a  coil  of  rope  or  in  the 
the  filth  of  the  cattle;  and  when  dead,  they  were  to 
be  flung  to  the  sharks.  When  at  last  they  reached 
Lisbon  they  were  forbidden  to  show  themselves  on 
deck,  lest  their  fellow-countrymen  and  their  families 
might  be  shocked  by  their  degradation.  They  were 
then  spirited  away  to  the  dungeons  of  St.  Julian  and 
Jonquiera  to  rot,  until  death  relieved  them  of  their 
sufferings.  Those  who  were  not  placed  in  the  crowded 
jails  were  sent  in  their  rags  to  find  a  refuge  some- 
where outside  of  their  native  land. 

As  has  been  said,  there  were  two  provinces  in  Portu- 
guese South  America  —  Brazil  and  MaranhSo.  In  the 
former,  besides  the  Seminary  of  Belem,  the  Society 
had  six  colleges  and  sixty-two  residences  with  a  total 
of  445  members.  Orders  were  given  to  the  whole 
445  to  assemble  at  Bahia,  Pernambuco  and  San 
Sebastian.  Everything  was  seized.  At  Bahia,  the 
novices  were  stripped  of  their  habits  and  sent  adrift, 
though  the  families  of  some  of  them  lived  in  far  away 
Portugal.  The  rest  were  confined  in  a  house  surrounded 
by  armed  troops  while  the  bishop  of  the  city  proclaimed 
that  any  one  who  would  encourage  the  victims  to 
persevere  in  their  vocation  would  be  excommunicated. 
Then,  one  day,  without  a  moment's  notice,  all  were 
ordered  out  of  the  house  and  sent  to  jail  in  different 
places.  There  they  remained  for  the  space  of  three 
months  waiting  for  the  missionaries  from  the  interior 
to  arrive.  They  came  in  slowly,  for  some  of  them 
lived  eight  hundred  miles  away,  and  had  to  tramp  all 
that  distance  through  the  forests  and  over  mountain 
ranges.  Before  all  had  made  their  appearance,  however, 
the  first  batches  were  sent  across  to  the  mother  country 
to  make  space.  They  started  on  March  16  and  reached 


470  The  Jesuits 

the  Tagus  on  June  6.  Those  from  Bahia  had  taken 
from  April  to  June,  and  it  was  fully  three  months 
before  the  convict  ship  from  Pernambuco  arrived 
in  port. 

All  this  time  the  deported  religious  were  kept  between 
decks,  and  soldiers  stood  at  the  gangway  with  drawn 
swords  to  prevent  any  attempt  to  go  up  to  get  a 
breath  of  fresh  air.  Their  food  was  nothing  but 
vegetables  cooked  in  sea-water,  for  there  was  not 
enough  of  drinking  water  even  to  slake  their  thirst. 
The  result  was  that  the  ship  had  a  cargo  of  half -dead 
men  when  it  anchored  off  Lisbon;  but  the  unfortunate 
wretches  were  kept  imprisoned  there  for  fifteen  days 
with  the  port-holes  closed.  They  were  then  trans- 
ferred to  a  Genoese  ship  and  sent  to  Civita  Vecchia. 
It  appears  that  the  Provincial  of  these  Brazilian 
Jesuits  was  named  Lynch;  but  strange  to  say,  there  is 
no  mention  of  him  in  any  of  the  Menologies.  The 
deportation  from  Pernambuco  and  San  Sebastian 
were  repetitions  of  this  organized  brutality;  and  the 
same  methods  were  employed  at  Goa  in  India,  and 
the  other  dependencies,  such  as  Macao  and  China. 
In  the  transportations  from  these  posts  in  the  Orient, 
the  ships  had  to  stop  at  Bahia  which  had  been  witness 
of  the  first  exportations ;  but  the  victims  in  the  China 
ships  could  learn  nothing  of  what  had  happened. 
Twenty-three  of  them  died  on  one  of  the  journeys 
from  India.  It  is  noted  that  a  Turk  at  Algiers  and  a 
Danish  Lutheran  sea-captain,  had  shown  the  greatest 
humanity  to  the  victims  whose  fellow  country-men 
seemed  transformed  into  savage  beasts.  The  prisoners 
had  been  kept  in  confinement  twenty  months  before 
they  left  Goa;  and  when  they  arrived  at  Lisbon  on 
October  18,  1764,  they  were  taken  off  in  long  boats  at 
the  dead  of  night,  and  lodged  in  the  foulest  dungeons 
of  the  fortress  of  St.  Julian. 


Pombal  471 

But  these  were  not  the  only  victims  of  Carvalho. 
There  were  prisoners  from  every  grade  of  society, 
and  their  number  reached  the  appalling  figure  of 
nine  thousand.  Among  them  were  eminent  ecclesi- 
astics, bishops  and  canons  and  some  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished laymen  of  the  kingdom.  A  description 
of  the  prisons  in  which  they  were  confined  for  years 
or  till  they  died  has  been  given  to  posterity  by  some 
of  the  victims.  Father  Weld  in  his  "  Suppression  of 
the  Society  in  Portugal "  quotes  extensively  from 
their  letters.  The  jails  were  six  in  number:  Belem, 
Almeida,  Azeitano,  St.  George,  Jonquiera  and  St. 
Julian.  They  had  annexes,  also,  along  the  African 
coasts  or  on  the  remote  islands  of  the  Atlantic.  Belem, 
the  Portuguese  name  for  Bethlehem,  so  called  because 
it  had  once  been  an  abbey,  was  about  four  miles  from 
Lisbon  towards  the  ocean.  It  had  the  distinction  of 
keeping  its  prisoners  behind  iron  bars,  but  exposed 
to  the  public  like  wild  beasts  in  a  menagerie;  so  that 
the  public  could  come  and  look  at  them  and  feed  them 
if  so  disposed.  The  Portuguese  criminals  were  given  a 
pittance  by  the  government,  to  purchase  food,  but  the 
foreigners  had  to  beg  from  the  spectators  for  the  means 
to  support  life.  It  was  admirably  contrived  to  induce 
insanity. 

Jonquiera  lay  between  Belem  and  Lisbon.  The 
cells  were  numerous  in  this  place.  Moreira,  the  king's 
former  confessor,  and  Malagrida  were  among  the 
inmates.  The  Marquis  de  Lorna  who  was  also  con- 
fined there  says  "  there  were  nineteen  cells,  each  about 
seven  paces  square,  and  so  tightly  closed  that  a  light 
had  to  be  kept  burning  continually;  otherwise  they 
would  have  been  in  absolute  darkness.  When  the 
prisoners  were  first  put  in  them,  the  plaster  was 
still  wet  and  yielded  to  the  slightest  pressure.  The 
cold  was  intense.  Worst  of  all  for  a  Catholic  country, 


472  The  Jesuits 

the  sacraments  were  allowed  the  prisoners  only  once  a 
year."  The  Marquis  says  that  during  the  sixteen 
years  he  spent  there  "  he  never  heard  Mass."  In 
these  dungeons  there  were  221  Jesuits,  88  of  whom 
died  in  their  chains.  The  Castle  of  St.  Julian  stood 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tagus  and  the  walls  were  washed 
by  the  tide.  In  this  place,  there  were  125  Jesuits  of 
all  nations;  men  of  high  birth,  of  great  virtue  and 
intellectual  ability.  The  cells  were  situated  below  the 
sea-level;  and  were  damp,  unventilated,  choked  with 
filth  and  swarming  with  vermin.  Some  of  the  Fathers 
passed  nineteen  years  in  those  tombs.  The  drinking 
water  was  putrid;  the  prisoners'  clothes  were  in  rags; 
often  not  sufficient  for  decency;  many  had  no  under 
garments  and  no  shoes;  their  hair  and  beards  were 
never  cut ;  the  food  was  scant  and  of  the  worst  quality, 
and  was  often  carried  off  before  there  was  time  to  eat  it. 
The  oil  of  the  single  lamp  in  the  cells  was  so  limited  that 
to  save  it,  the  wick  was  reduced  to  two  or  three  threads. 
The  same  conditions  prevailed  in  the  other  prisons. 
Meantime  the  jailers  were  making  money  on  the  sup- 
plies supposed  to  be  served  to  the  prisoners.  Such 
was  prison  life  in  Portugal  during  the  twenty  years 
of  PombaTs  administration. 

One  of  the  particularly  outrageous  features  of  these 
imprisonments  was  that  Pombal  preferred  to  hold 
foreigners  rather  than  native  Portuguese.  The 
foreigners,  having  no  friends  in  the  country,  would 
not,  in  all  probability,  be  claimed  by  their  relatives; 
and  as  the  ministers  of  nearly  all  the  nations  of  Europe 
were  of  the  same  mind  as  himself,  he  had  no  fear  of 
political  intervention.  Thus  we  find  in  a  letter  of 
Father  Kaulen,  a  German  Jesuit,  which  was  published 
by  Christopher  de  Murr,  that  in  one  section  of  St. 
Julian,  besides  fifty -four  Portuguese  Jesuits,  there  were 
thirteen  Germans,  one  Italian,  three  Frenchmen, 


Pombal  473 

two  Spaniards,  and  three  Chinese.  These  Chinese 
Jesuits  must  have  made  curious  reflections  on  the  mean- 
ing of  the  term  "  Christian  nations."  '  There  are 
others  in  the  towers,"  adds  Father  Kaulen,  "  but  I 
cannot  find  out  who  they  are,  or  how  many,  or  to 
what  country  they  belong." 

The  three  Frenchmen,  Fathers  du  Gad  and  de 
Ranceau  along  with  Brother  Delsart  were  set  free 
at  the  demand  of  Marie  Leczinska,  the  wife  of  Louis  XV; 
it  was  through  them  that  Father  Kaulen  was  able  to 
send  his  letter  to  the  provincial  of  the  Lower  Rhine. 
He  himself  was  probably  liberated  later  by  the  inter- 
vention of  Maria  Theresa,  but  there  is  no  record  of 
it.  His  letter  is  of  great  value  as  he  had  personal 
experience  of  what  he  writes.  His  experience  was  a 
long  one,  for  he  entered  the  prison  in  1759;  and  this 
communication  to  his  provincial  is  dated  October  12, 
1766.  In  it  he  writes: — 

"  I  was  taken  prisoner  by  a  soldier  with  a  drawn 
sword  and  brought  to  Fort  Olreida  on  the  frontier  of 
Portugal.  There  I  was  put  in  a  frightful  cell  filled 
with  rats  which  got  into  my  bed  and  ate  my  food. 
I  could  not  chase  them  away,  it  was  so  dark.  We 
were  twenty  Jesuits,  each  one  in  a  separate  cell. 
During  the  first  four  months  we  were  treated  with  some 
consideration.  After  that,  they  gave  us  only  enough 
food  to  keep  us  from  dying  of  hunger.  They  took 
away  our  breviaries,  medals,  etc.  One  of  the 
Fathers  resisted  so  vigorously  when  they  tried  to 
deprive  him  of  his  crucifix  that  they  desisted.  The 
sick  got  no  help  or  medicine. 

"  After  three  years  they  transferred  nineteen  of  us 
to  another  place  because  of  a  war  that  had  broken  out. 
We  travelled  across  Portugal  surrounded  by  a  troop 
of  cavalry,  and  were  brought  to  Lisbon;  and  after 
passing  the  night  in  a  jail  with  the  worst  kind  of 


474  The  Jesuits 

criminals,  we  were  sent  to  St.  Julian,  which  is  on  the 
seashore.  It  is  a  horrible  hole,  underground,  dark 
and  foul.  The  food  is  bad,  the  water  swarming  with 
worms.  We  have  half  a  pound  of  bread  a  day.  We 
receive  the  sacraments  only  when  we  are  dying.  The 
doctor  lives  outside  but  if  we  fall  sick  during  the  night, 
he  is  not  called.  The  prison  is  filled  with  worms  and 
insects  and  little  animals  such  as  I  never  saw  before. 
The  walls  are  dripping  wet,  so  that  our  clothes  soon 
rot.  One  of  the  Fathers  died  and  his  face  was  so 
brilliant  that  one  of  the  soldiers  exclaimed:  '  That's 
the  face  of  a  saint.'  We  are  not  unhappy,  and  the 
three  French  Fathers  who  left  us  envied  our  lot. 

'''  Very  few  of  us  have  even  the  shreds  of  our  soutanes 
left.  Indeed  we  have  scarcely  enough  clothes  for 
decency.  At  night  a  rough  covering  full  of  sharp 
points  serves  as  a  blanket;  and  the  straw  on  which  we 
sleep  as  well  as  the  blanket  that  covers  us  soon  become 
foul,  and  it  is  very  hard  to  get  them  renewed.  We  are 
not  allowed  to  speak  to  any  one.  The  jailor  is 
extremely  brutal  and  seems  to  make  a  point  of  adding 
to  our  sufferings;  only  with  the  greatest  reluctance 
does  he  give  us  what  we  need.  Yet  we  could  be  set 
free  in  a  moment  if  we  abandoned  the  Society. 
Some  of  the  Fathers  who  were  at  Macao  and  had 
undergone  all  sorts  of  sufferings  at  the  hands  of  the 
pagans,  such  as  prison  chains  and  torture  say  to  us  that 
perhaps  God  found  it  better  to  have  them  suffer  in 
their  own  country  for  nothing,  than  among  idolaters 
for  the  Faith. 

"  We  ask  the  prayers  of  the  Fathers  of  the  province, 
but  not  because  we  lament  our  condition.  On  the 
contrary,  we  are  happy.  As  for  myself,  though  I 
would  like  to  see  my  companions  set  free,  I  would  not 
change  places  with  you  outside.  We  wish  all  our 
Fathers  good  health  so  that  they  may  work  courage- 


Pombal  475 

ously  for  God  in  Germany  to  make  up  for  the  little 
glory  he  receives  here  in  Portugal. 

Your  Reverence's  most  humble  servant 

Lawrence  Kaulen, 

Captive  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Pombal  was  determined  now  to  make  a  master- 
stroke to  discredit  the  Portuguese  Jesuits.  He  would 
disgrace  and  put  to  death  as  a  criminal  their  most 
distinguished  representative,  Father  Malagrida,  now 
over  seventy  years  of  age,  who  had  already  passed 
two  years  in  the  dungeons  of  Jonquiera.  Malagrida 
was  regarded  by  the  people  as  a  saint.  He  had  labored 
for  many  years  in  the  missions  of  Brazil  and  was 
marvelously  successful  in  the  work  of  converting  the 
savages.  Unfortunately  he  had  been  recalled  to 
Portugal  in  1749  by  the  queen  mother  to  prepare  her 
for  the  end  of  her  earthly  career.  As  Malagrida  knew 
how  Carvalho's  brother  was  acting  in  Brazil,  he  was 
evidently  a  dangerous  man  to  have  so  near  the  Court. 
Hence  when  the  earthquake  occurred  and  the  holy  old 
missionary  dared  to  tell  the  people  that  possibly  it  was 
a  punishment  of  God  for  the  sins  of  the  people,  Car- 
valho  banished  him  to  Setubal  and  kept  him  there 
for  two  years.  When  the  supposed  plot  against  the 
king's  life  occurred,  Malagrida  was  sent  to  prison  as 
being  concerned  in  it,  though  he  had  never  been  in 
Lisbon  since  his  banishment.  He  was  condemned  to 
death  with  the  other  supposed  conspirators;  but  his 
character  as  a  priest,  and  his  acknowledged  sanctity 
made  the  king  forbid  the  execution  of  the  sentence. 
Pombal,  however,  found  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty. 
A  book  was  produced  which  was  said  to  have  been 
written  by  Malagrida  during  his  imprisonment.  It 
was  crammed  with  utterances  that  only  a  madman 
could  have  written:  In  any  case  it  could  not  have 


476  The  Jesuits 

been  produced  by  the  occupant  of  a  dark  cell,  where 
there  was  no  ink  and  no  paper.  When  it  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Inquisition  whose  death  sentences  the 
king  himself  could  not  revoke,  the  judges  refused  to 
consider  the  case  at  all ;  whereupon  they  were  promptly 
removed  by  Pombal  who  made  his  own  brother  chief 
inquisitor;  and  from  him  and  tw.o  other  tools,  promptly 
drew  a  condemnation  of  Malagrida  for  heresy,  schism, 
blasphemy  and  gross  immorality. 

The  sentence  of  death  was  passed  on  September  20, 
1761,  and  on  the  same  day  the  venerable  priest  was 
brought  to  hear  the  formal  proclamation  of  it  in  the 
hall  of  supplication.  There  he  was  told  that  he  was 
degraded  from  his  priestly  functions,  and  was  con- 
demned to-be  led  through  the  public  streets  of  the  city, 
with  a  rope  around  his  neck,  to  the  square  called  do 
Rocco,  where  he  was  to  be  strangled  by  the  executioner, 
and  after  he  was  dead,  his  body  was  to  be  burned  to 
ashes,  so  that  no  memory  of  him  or  his  sepulchre  might 
remain.  He  heard  the  sentence  without  emotion 
and  quietly  protested  his  innocence.  On  the  very 
next  day,  September  21,  the  execution  took  place. 
Platforms  were  .erected  around  the  square.  Cavalry 
and  infantry  were  massed  here  and  there  in  large 
bodies;  each  soldier  had  eight  rounds  of  ammunition. 
Pombal  presided.  The  nobility,  the  members  of 
the  courts,  and  officers  of  the  State  were  compelled 
to  be  present,  and  great  throngs  of  people  crowded  the 
square  and  filled  the  abutting  avenues  and  streets. 

When  everything  was  ready,  a  gruesome  procession 
started  from  the  prison.  Malagrida  appeared  with 
the  carocha,  or  high  dap  of  the  criminal,  on  his  head, 
and  a  gag  in  his  mouth.  With  him  were  fifty-two 
others  who  had  been  condemned  for  various  crimes; 
but  only  he  was  to  die.  They  were  called  from  their 
cells  merely  to  accentuate  his  disgrace.  Having 


Pombal  477 

arrived  at  the  place  of  execution,  the  sentence  was 
again  read  to  him;  and  when  he  was  relieved  of  the 
gag,  he  calmly  protested  his  innocence  and  gave  him- 
self up  to  the  executioners,  uttering  the  words  of 
Our  Lord  on  the  Cross:  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands,  I 
commend  my  spirit."  He  was  quickly  strangled; 
then  fire  was  set  to  his  lifeless  body  and  the  ashes  were 
scattered  to  the  winds.  He  was  seventy-two  years  of 
age,  and  had  spent  forty-one  of  them  working  for  the 
salvation  of  his  fellowmen. 

All  this  happened  in  Portugal  which  once  gloried 
in  having  the  great  Francis  Xavier  represent  it  before 
the  world;  which  exulted  in  a  son  like  de  Britto,  the 
splendid  apostle  of  the  Brahmans,  who  waived  aside 
a  mitre  in  Europe  but  bent  his  neck  with  delight  to 
receive  the  stroke  of  an  Oriental  scimitar.  The  same 
Portugal  which  inscribed  on  its  roll  of  honor  the  forty 
Jesuits  who  suffered  death  while  on  their  way  to 
evangelize  Portugal's  possessions  in  Brazil,  now  made 
a  holiday  to  witness  the  hideous  torture  of  the  venerable 
and  saintly  Malagrida.  The  Jesuits  of  Portugal  had 
done  much  for  their  country.  They  had  borne  an 
honorable  part  in  the  struggle  that  threw  off  the  Spanish 
yoke :  the  magnificent  Vieira  was  a  greater  emancipator 
of  the  native  races  than  was  Las  Casas ;  and  he  and  his 
brethren  had  won  more  territories  for  Portugal  than 
da  Gama  and  Cabral  had  ever  discovered.  But  all 
that  was  forgotten,  and  they  were  driven  out  of  their 
country,  or  kept  chained  in  fetid  dungeons  till  they 
died  or  were  burned  at  the  stake  in  the  market-place, 
in  the  preseence  of  the  king  and  the  people.  No  wonder 
that  Portugal  has  descended  to  the  place  she  now 
occupies  among  the  nations. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CHOISEUL 

The  French  Method  —  Purpose  of  the  Enemy  —  Preliminary  Accu- 
sations —  Voltaire's  testimony  —  La  Vallette  —  La  Chalotais  —  Seiz- 
ure of  Property  —  Auto  da  fe  of  the  Works  of  Lessius,  Suarez,  Valentia, 
etc. — Appeal  of  the  French  Episcopacy — Christophe  de  Beaumont — 
Demand  for  a  French  Vicar —  "  Sint  ut  sunt  aut  non  sint  " —  Protest 
of  Clement  XIII  —  Action  of  Father  La  Croix  and  the  Jesuits  of  Paris 
—  Louis  XV  signs  the  Act  of  Suppression  —  Occupations  of  dispersed 
Jesuits  —  Undisturbed  in  Canada  —  Expelled  from  Louisiana  — 
Choiseul's  Colonization  of  Guiana. 

THE  result  of  Pombal's  work  in  Portugal  was 
applauded  by  his  friends  in  France,  but  his  methods 
were  condemned.  "  He  was  a  butcher  with  an  axe." 
Their  own  procedure  was  to  be  along  different  lines. 
They  would  first  poison  the  public  mind,  would  enjoy 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  heretical  Jansenist  condemn- 
ing the  Jesuit  for  heterodoxy,  and  the  professional 
debauchee  assailing  his  morality,  and  then  they  would 
put  the  Society  to  death  by  process  of  law  for  the  good 
of  the  commonwealth  and  of  the  Church.  There 
would  be  no  imprisonments,  no  burnings  at  the  stake, 
no  exiles,  but  simply  an  authorized  confiscation  of 
property  which  would  leave  the  Jesuits  without  a 
home,  replenish  the  public  purse  and  ensure  the  peace 
of  the  nation.  It  was  much  easier  and  more  refined. 
Meantime,  the  Portuguese  exhibition  was  a  valuable 
object  lesson  to  their  followers,  who  saw  a  king  lately 
honored  with  the  title  of  His  Most  Faithful  Majesty 
putting  to  death  the  most  ardent  champions  of  the 
Faith.  Later  on,  The  Christian  King,  The  Catholic 
King,  and  The  Apostolic  Emperor  would  unite  to 
show  that  "  Faith  "  and  "  Christianity  "  and  Apos- 
tolicity  "  were  only  names. 

478 


Choiseul  479 

With  all  their  refinement,  however,  the  French 
were  more  radical  and  more  malignant  than  the  Portu- 
guese. Pombal  had  no  other  idea  beyond  that  of  a 
state  Church  such  as  he  had  seen  in  England,  forming 
a  part  of  the  government  machinery,  and  when  his 
effort  to  bring  that  about  by  marrying  the  Protestant 
Duke  of  Cumberland  to  the  Infanta  of  Portugal  was 
thwarted  by  the  Jesuits,  he  simply  treated  them  as 
he  did  his  other  political  enemies;  he  put  them  in  jail 
or  the  grave.  In  France,  the  scheme  was  more  compre- 
hensive. With  men  like  Voltaire  and  his  associates  in 
the  literary  world,  and  Choiseul  and  others  of  his  set 
controlling  the  politics  of  the  country,  the  plan  was 
not  merely  to  do  away  with  the  Church,  but  with  all 
revealed  religion.  As  the  Jesuits  were  conspicuous 
adversaries  of  the  scheme,  it  was  natural  that  they 
should  be  disposed  of  first. 

Such  is  the  opinion  of  St.  Liguori,  who  says:  "  The 
whole  thing  is  a  plot  of  the  Jansenists  and  unbelievers 
to  strike  the  Pope  and  the  Church."  The  Protestant 
historian  Maximilian  Schoell  is  of  like  mind  (Cours 
d'histoire,  xliv.):  "The  Church  had  to  be  isolated; 
and  to  be  isolated,  it  had  to  be  deprived  of  the  help  of 
that  sacred  phalanx  which  had  avowed  itself  to  the 

defence  of  the  Pontifical  throne Such  was  the 

real  cause  of  the  hatred  meted  out  to  that  Society." 
Dutilleul,  in  his  "  Histoire  des  corporations  religieuses 
en  France"  (p.  279)  expresses  himself  as  follows: 
'  The  Jesuit  is  a  missionary,  a  traveller,  a  mystic,  a 
man  of  learning,  an  elegant  civilizer  of  savages,  a  con- 
fessor of  queens,  a  professor,  a  legislator,  a  financier, 
and,  if  need  be,  a  warrior.  His  was  not  a  narrow  and 
personal  ambition,  as  people  erroneously  suppose  and 
assert.  He  was  something  more.  He  was  a  reactionist, 
a  Catholic  and  a  Roman  revolutionist.  Far  from 
being  attached,  as  is  supposed,  to  his  own  interests, 


480  The  Jesuits 

the  Society  has  been  in  the  most  daring  efforts  of  its 
indefatigable  ambition  only  the  protagonists  of  the 
spiritual  authority  of  Rome." 

Indeed,  we  have  it  from  Voltaire  himself,  who  wrote 
to  Helvetius  in  1761:  "Once  we  have  destroyed  the 
Jesuits,  we  shall  have  easy  work  with  the  Pope." 
Rorbacher  (Histoire  de  l'6glise,  torn.  XXVII,  p.  28) 
holds  the  same  view,  "  They  are  attacking  the  Society 
only  to  strike  with  greater  certainty  at  the  Church 
and  the  State."  But  the  real,  the  ultimate  purpose 
of  Voltaire  was  expressed  by  his  famous  phrase  Ecrasons 
rinfdme  —  "Let  us  crush  the  detestable  thing,"  the 
detestable  thing  meaning  God  or  Christ,  and  such  has 
ever  been  the  aim  of  his  disciples.  That  it  still  persists 
was  proclaimed  officially  from  the  French  tribune  by 
Viviani,  "  Our  war  is  not  against  the  Church,  nor 
against  Christianity,  but  against  God."  This  open 
and  defiant  profession  of  atheism,  however,  would 
not  have  been  possible  in  1761.  Hence,  to  conceal 
their  purpose,  they  allied  themselves  with  the  most 
pretentious  professors  of  the  religion  of  the  time;  the 
only  ones,  according  to  themselves,  who  knew  the 
Church's  dogma  and  observed  her  moral  law;  the 
orthodox  and  austere  Jansenists,  who  probably  flattered 
themselves  they  were  tricking  ks  impies,  whereas, 
d'Alembert  wrote  to  one  of  his  friends  "  Let  the 
Pandours  destroy  the  Jesuits ;  then  we  shall  destroy  the 
Pandours." 

The  programme  was  to  compel  the  parliament  to 
terrorize  the  king,  which  was  very  easy,  because  of  the 
gross  licentiousness  of  Louis  XV.  He  was  simply  a 
tool  in  the  hands  of  his  mistresses,  and  Guizot  in  his 
"  Histoire  de  France  "  has  a  picture  in  which  Madame 
du  Barry  stands  over  the  king  and  points  to  the  picture 
of  Charles  I  of  England,  who  was  beheaded  for  resisting 
parliament. 


Choiseul  481 

The  Jansenist  section  of  the  coalition  began  the 
fight  by  the  time-worn  accusation  of  the  "  lax  morality  " 
of  the  Jesuits  —  a  method  of  assault  that  was  by  no 
means  acceptable  to  Voltaire  who  as  early  as  1746 
had  written  to  his  friend  d'Alembert,  as  follows: 
'  What  did  I  see  during  the  seven  years  that  I  lived 
in  the  Jesuit's  College?  The  most  laborious  and  frugal 
manner  of  life;  every  hour  of  which  was  spent  in  the 
care  of  us  boys  and  in  the  exercises  of  their  austere 
profession.  For  that  I  call  to  witness  thousands  of  men 
who  were  brought  up  as  I  was.  Hence,  it  is  that  I 
can  never  help  being  astounded  at  their  being  accused 
of  teaching  lax  morality.  They  have  had  like  other 
religious  in  the  dark  ages  casuists  who  have  treated 
the  pro  and  con  of  questions  that  are  evident  today 
or  have  been  relegated  to  oblivion.  But,  ma  foi  are 
we  going  to  judge  their  morality  by  the  satire  of  the 
Lettres  Provinciates.  It  is  assuredly  by  Father  Bour- 
daloue  and  Father  Cheminais  and  their  other  preachers 
and  by  their  missionaries  that  we  should  measure 
them.  Put  in  parallel  columns  the  sermons  of  Bour- 
daloue  and  the  Lettres  Provinciates,  and  you'll  find 
in  the  latter  the  art  of  raillery  pressed  into  service  to 
make  indifferent  things  appear  criminal  and  to  clothe 
insults  in  elegant  language;  but  you  will  learn  from 
Bourdaloue  how  to  be  severe  to  yourself  and  indulgent 
to  others.  I  ask  then,  which  is  true  morality  and  which 
of  the  two  books  is  more  useful  to  mankind?  I  make 
bold  to  say  that  there  is  nothing  more  contradictory; 
nothing  more  iniquitous;  nothing  more  shameful  in 
human  nature  than  to  accuse  of  lax  morality,  the  men 
who  lead  the  austerest  kind  of  life  in  Europe,  and 
who  go  to  face  death  at  the  ends  of  Asia  and 
America." 

The  romances  about  the  immense  wealth  of  the 
Society    best    appealed    to    the    public    imagination, 
31 


482  The  Jesuits 

especially  as  the  news  of  an  impending  financial 
disaster  was  in  the  air.  One  instance  of  this  style  of 
propaganda  may  suffice.  The  others  all  resemble  it. 
A  Spaniard,  it  was  said,  had  arrived  at  Brest  with, 
2,000,000  limes  in  his  wallet  and  was  promjkly  killed 
by  the  Jesuits.  Soon  the  2,000,000  had  grown  to 
8,000,000.  Then  there  was  a  distinguished  conversion; 
that  of  a  Jesuit  named  Chamillard  who  had  turned 
Gallican  and  Jansenist  on  his  death-bed;  and  although 
Chamillard  a  few  days  afterwards  appeared  in  the  flesh 
and  protested  that  he  was  neither  dead  nor  a  Gallican 
nor  a  Jansenist,  his  testimony  was  set  aside.  It  had 
appeared  in  print  and  that  was  enough.  Such  absurdi- 
ties of  course  could  do  no  serious  harm,  but  at  last,  a 
splendid  fact  presented  itself  which  could  not  be  dis- 
proved; especially  as  a  vast  number  of  people,  in  France 
and  elsewhere,  were  financial  sufferers  in  consequence 
of  it.  It  was  the  bankruptcy  of  Father  de  la  Valette. 
In  the  public  mind  it  proved  everything  that  had  ever 
been  written  about  the  Order.  Briefly  it  is  as  follows: 
At  the  very  beginning  of  the  Seven  Years  War, 
the  British  fleet  had  destroyed  300  French  ships, 
captured  10,000  sailors  and  confiscated  300,000,000 
limes  worth  of  merchandise.  Among  the  sufferers  was 
Father  La  Valette,  the  superior  of  Martinique,  who 
was  engaged  in  cultivating  extensive  plantations  on 
the  island,  and  selling  the  products  in  Europe,  for  the 
support  of  the  missions.  Very  unwisely  he  borrowed 
extensively  after  the  first  disaster,  going  deeper  and 
deeper  into  debt,  until  at  last  he  was  unable  to  meet 
his  obligations  which  by  this  time  had  run  up  to  the 
alarming  sum  of  2,000,000  limes,  or  about  $400,000. 
Suit  was  therefore  brought  by  some  of  the  creditors, 
but  instead  of  submitting  the  case  to  a  commission 
established  long  before  by  Louis  XIV  for  adjusting 
the  affairs  of  the  missions,  they  laid  it  before  the  usual 


Choiseul  483 

parliamentary  tribunal  in  spite  of  the  fact  of  its 
inveterate  and  well-known  hatred  of  the  Society. 
Guizot  says  that  they  did  it  with  a  certain  pride, 
so  convinced  were  they  of  the  justice  of  their  plea. 
Hundreds  of  others  had  suffered  like  themselves  at 
the  hands  of  the  enemy  in  the  Seven  Years  War,  and 
they  had  no  desire  to  avail  themselves  of  any  special 
legislation  in  their  behalf.  They  underrated  the 
honesty  of  the  judges. 

A  verdict  was,  of  course,  rendered  against  them, 
and  the  whole  Society  was  made  responsible  for  the 
debt,  though  by  the  law  of  the  land  there  was  no 
solidarity  between  the  various  houses  of  religious 
orders.  Nevertheless,  they  set  to  work  to  cancel 
their  indebtedness.  They  had  made  satisfactory 
arrangements  with  their  principal  creditors,  and 
although  Martinique,  where  much  of  the  property  was 
located,  had  been  seized  by  the  English;  yet  one-third 
of  their  liabilities  had  been  paid  off  when  the  govern- 
ment took  alarm.  If  this  continued,  the  public 
treasury  would  reap  no  profit  from  the  transaction. 
Hence,  an  order  was  issued  to  seize  every  Jesuit 
establishment  in  France.  A  stop  was  put  to  the  reim- 
bursement of  private  individuals  and  the  government 
seized  all  that  was  left.  But  although  the  Society  was 
not  to  blame  it  incurred  the  hatred  of  all  those  who 
were  thus  deprived  of  their  money.  That,  indeed, 
was  the  purpose  of  the  government  seizure. 

Long  before  the  crash,  the  superiors  had  done  all 
in  their  power  to  stop  La  Valette,  but  in  those  days 
Martinique  was  far  from  Rome.  Although  attempt 
after  attempt  was  made  to  reach  him,  it  was  all  in  vain. 
One  messenger  was  crippled  when  embarking  at 
Marseilles;  another  died  at  sea;  another  was  captured 
by  pirates,  until  in  1762  Father  de  la  Marche  arrived 
on  the  island.  After  a  thorough  investigation  de  la 


484  The  Jesuits 

Marche  declared  (i)  that  La  Valette  had  given  himself 
up  to  trading  in  defiance  of  canon  law  and  of  the  special 
laws  of  the  Society;  (2)  that  he  had  concealed  his 
proceedings  from  the  higher  superiors  of  the  Society 
and  even  from  the  Fathers  of  Martinique;  (3)  that 
his  acts  had  been  denounced  by  his  superiors,  not  only 
as  soon  as  they  were  made  known,  but  as  soon  as  they 
were  suspected.  The  visitor  then  asked  the  General  of 
the  Society  (i)  to  suspend  La  Valette  from  all  admin- 
istration both  spiritual  and  temporal:  and  (2)  to  recall 
him  immediately  to  Europe. 

La  Valette's  submission  was  appended  to  the  verdict 
of  the  visitor;  in  it,  he  acknowledges  the  justice  of 
the  sentence,  although  as  soon  as  he  knew  what  harm 
he  was  doing  he  had  stopped.  He  attests  under  oath 
that  not  one  of  his  superiors  had  given  him  any  author- 
ization or  counsel  or  approval ;  and  no  one  had  shared 
in  or  connived  at  his  enterprises.  He  takes  God  to 
witness  that  he  did  not  make  his  avowals  under 
compulsion  or  threat,  or  out  of  complaisance,  or  for 
any  inducement  held  out  to  him,  but  absolutely  of  his 
own  accord,  and  for  truth's  sake;  and  in  order  to  dispel 
and  refute,  as  far  as  in  him  lay,  the  calumnies  against 
the  Society  consequent  upon  his  acts.  The  document 
bore  the  date  of  April  25,  1762.  He  was  expelled  from 
the  Society  and  passed  the  rest  of  his  life  in  England. 
He  never  retracted  or  modified  any  of  the  statements 
he  had  made  in  Martinique. 

Following  close  on  the  decision  in  the  La  Valette 
case,  parliament  ordered  the  immediate  production 
of  a  copy  of  the  Constitutions  of  the  Society.  On  the 
following  morning,  it  was  in  their  hands  and  was 
submitted  to  several  committees  made  up  of  Jansenists, 
Gallicans  and  Atheists.  These  committees  were 
charged  with  the  examination  of  the  Institute  and 
also  of  various  publications  of  the  Society.  Extracts 


Choiseul  485 

were  to  be  made  and  presented  for  the  consideration 
of  the  court.  The  most  famous  of  these  reports  was 
the  one  made  by  La  Chalotais,  a  prominent  magistrate 
of  Brittany.  He  discovered  that  the  Society  was  in 
conflict  with  the  authority  of  the  Church,  the  general 
Councils,  the  Apostolic  See,  and  all  ecclesiastical  and 
civil  governments;  moreover  that,  in  their  approved 
theological  works,  they  taught  every  form  of  heresy, 
idolatry  and  superstition,  and  inculcated  suicide, 
regicide,  sacrilege,  robbery,  impurity  of  every  kind, 
usury,  magic,  murder,  cruelty,  hatred,  vengeance, 
sedition,  treachery  —  in  brief,  whatever  iniquity  man- 
kind could  commit  was  to  be  found  in  their  writings. 
As  soon  as  the  report  was  laid  before  the  judges,  .a 
decree  was  issued  on  May  8,  1761  declaring  that  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty-eight  colleges,  churches  and 
residences  with  the  foreign  missions  of  the  Order  were 
to  be  seized  by  the  government;  all  the  physical 
laboratories,  the  libraries,  moneys,  inheritances  of  its 
members,  the  bequests  of  friends  for  charitable, 
educational  or  missionary  purposes  —  all  was  to  go 
into  the  Government  coffers. 

Cretineau-Joly  estimated  that  the  total  value  of 
the  property  seized  amounted  to  about  58,000,000 
francs  or  $11,600,000.  The  amount  of  the  booty 
explains  the  zeal  of  the  prosecution.  To  soften  the 
blow  a  concession  of  a  pension  of  thirty  cents  a  day 
was  made  by  the  Paris  parliament  to  those  who  would 
take  an  oath  that  they  had  left  the  Society.  The 
Languedoc  legislators,  however,  cut  it  down  to  twelve. 
Moreover  this  pension  was  restricted  to  the  Professed. 
The  Scholastics  got  nothing;  and  as  they  were  con- 
sidered legally  dead,  because  of  the  vows  they  had 
taken  in  the  Society,  they  were  declared  incapable  of 
inheriting  even  from  their  own  parents.  The  decree 
also  forbade  all  subjects  of  the  king  to  enter  the  Society ; 


486  The  Jesuits 

to  attend  any  lecture  given  by  Jesuits;  to  visit  their 
houses  previous  to  their  expulsion;  or  to  hold  any 
communication  with  them.  The  Jesuits  themselves 
were  enjoined  not  to  write  to  each  other,  not  even  to 
the  General.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  lawmakers 
who  issued  these  regulations  profess  to  be  shocked  by 
the  Jesuit  doctrine  of  "  blind  obedience." 

By  a  second  decree  it  was  ordered  that  the  works  of 
twenty-seven  Jesuits  which  had  been  examined  should  be 
burned  by  the  public  executioner.  Among  them  were 
such  authors  as  Bellarmine,  Lessius,  Suarez,  Valentia, 
Salmeron,  Gretser,  Vasquez,  Jouvancy,  —  all  of  whom 
were  and  yet  are  considered  to  be  among  the  greatest 
of  Catholic  theologians,  but  the  lay  doctors  of  the 
parliament  held  them  to  be  dangerous  to  public 
morals;  and  to  the  peace  of  the  nation  and  in  order  to 
express  their  horror  emphatically,  they  called  for  this 
auto  da  ft.  It  should  be  noted  that  all  of  these  works 
were  written  in  Latin,  and  that  their  technical  character 
as  well  as  the  terminology  employed  would  make  it 
absolutely  impossible  for  even  these  solons  of  the 
French  parliament  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  text. 
In  order  to  sway  the  public  mind,  a  summary  of  the 
Chalotais  report,  commonly  known  as  "  Extraits  des 
assertions"  was  scattered  broadcast  throughout  the 
country.  The  desired  eff ect  was  produced  and  even  to- 
day if  an  attempt  is  made  to  answer  any  of  its  charges 
the  answer  is  always  ready,  "  We  have  the  authority 
of  La  Chalotais;  he  was  an  eminent  magistrate;  he 
examined  the  books;  the  highest  court  in  France 
accorded  him  the  verdict,  and  any  attempt  to  explain 
away  the  charges  is  superfluous! " 

Yet  there  was  in  Paris  at  that  time  a  higher  tribunal 
than  the  one  which  gave  La  Chalotais  his  claim  to 
notoriety.  It  was  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Clergy 
which  had  been  convoked  by  the  King  to  pass  upon 


Choiseul  487 

the  character  of  the  Jesuits  as  a  body,  before  he  affixed 
his  signature  to  the  decree  of  expulsion.  It  consisted 
of  fifty-one  prelates,  some  of  them  cardinals.  They 
met  on  June  27  and  with  the  exception  of  the  Bishop 
of  Angers,  Allais,  and  especially  of  Fitzjames,  the 
Bishop  of  Soissons,  who  was  the  head  of  the  Jansenist 
party  and  whose  pastoral  utterances  were  condemned 
by  the  Pope  as  heretical,  addressed  a  "  Letter  "  to  the 
king  conjuring  him  "  to  preserve  an  institution  which 
was  so  useful  to  the  State,"  and  declaring  that  "  they 
could  not  see  without  alarm  the  destruction  of  a 
society  of  religious  who  were  so  praiseworthy  for  the 
integrity  of  their  morals,  the  austerity  of  their  discipline, 
the  vastness  of  their  labors  and  their  erudition  and  for 
the  countless  services  they  had  rendered  to  the  Church. 

"  Charged  as  they  are  with  the  most  precious  trust 
of  the  education  of  youth,  participating  as  they  do 
under  the  authority  of  the  bishops,  in  the  most  delicate 
functions  of  the  holy  ministry,  honored  as  they  are  by 
the  confidence  of  kings  in  the  most  redoubtable  of 
tribunals,  loved  and  sought  after  by  a  great  number 
of  our  subjects  and  esteemed  even  by  those  who  fear 
them,  they  have  won  for  themselves  a  consideration 
which  is  too  general  to  be  disregarded." 

"  Everything,  Sire,  pleads  with  you  in  favor  of  the 
Jesuits:  religion  claims  them  as  its  defenders;  the 
Church  as  her  ministers;  Christians  as  the  guardians 
of  their  conscience;  a  great  number  of  your  subjects 
who  have  been  their  pupils  intercede  with  you  for 
their  old  masters;  and  all  the  youth  of  the  kingdom 
pray  for  those  who  are  to  form  their  minds  and  their 
hearts.  Do  not,  Sire,  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  our  united 
supplication;  do  not  permit  in  your  kingdom,  that  in 
violation  of  the  laws  of  justice,  and  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  State  an  entire  and  blameless  society 
should  be  destroyed." 


488  The  Jesuits 

The  Archbishop  of  Paris,  the  famous  Christophe  de 
Beaumont  was  not  satisfied  with  this  general  appeal. 
He  was  the  chief  figure  in  France  at  that  time ;  and  every 
word  he  uttered  was  feared  by  the  enemies  of  the  Church. 
He  was  great  enough  to  be  in  correspondence  with  all 
the  crowned  heads  of  Europe,  and  Frederick  the  Great 
said  of  him:  "  If  he  would  consent  to  come  to  Prussia, 
I  would  go  half  way  to  meet  him."  Louis  XV  had 
forced  him  to  accept  the  See  of  Paris,  but  had  not  the 
courage  to  support  him  when  assailed  by  his  foes. 
He  was  a  saint  as  well  as  a  hero;  he  lent  money  to 
men  who  were  libelling  him,  and  would  give  the  clothes 
on  his  back  to  the  poor.  When  a  hospital  took  fire 
in  the  city,  he  filled  his  palace  and  his  cathedral  with 
the  patients.  Hence,  he  did  not  hesitate,  after  parlia- 
ment had  condemned  the  Society,  to  issue  a  pastoral 
which  he  foresaw  would  drive  him  from  his  see.  "  What 
shall  I  say,  Brethren,"  he  asks,  "  to  let  you  know 
what  I  think  of  the  religious  society  which  is  now  so 
fiercely  assailed?  We  repeat  with  the  Council  of  Trent 
that  it  is  'a  pious  Institute;'  that  it  is  'venerable,' 
as  the  illustrious  Bossuet  declared  it  to  be.  We  spurn 
far  from  us  the  '  Extraits  des  assertions  '  as  a  resume 
of  Jesuit  teaching;  and  we  renew  our  declaration  that 
in  the  condition  of  suffering  and  humiliation  to  which 
they  have  been  brought  that  their  lot  is  a  most  happy 
one,  because  in  the  eyes  of  religious  men,  it  is  an 
infinitely  precious  thing  to  have  no  reproach  on  one's 
soul  when  overwhelmed  by  misfortune."  As  he 
foresaw  he  was  expelled  from  his  see  for  this  utterance, 
not  by  parliament  but  by  Louis  XV  whose  cause  he 
was  defending. 

Perhaps  this  treatment  of  the  great  Archbishop  of 
Paris  explains  the  silence  maintained  through  all  the 
uproar  by  the  Jesuits  themselves.  One  would  expect 
some  splendid  outburst  of  eloquence  in  behalf  of  the 


Choiseul  489 

Society  from  one  of  its  outraged  members;  but  not  a 
word  was  uttered  by  any  of  them.  Their  protests 
would  not  have  been  printed  or  published.  Even 
Theiner  who  wrote  against  the  Society  says:  "All 
France  was  inundated  with  libellous  pamphlets  against 
the  Jesuits.  The  most  notable  of  all  was  the  one 
entitled  '  Extracts  of  the  dangerous  and  pernicious 
doctrines  of  all  kinds  which  the  so-called  Jesuits  have 
at  all  times,  uninterruptedly  maintained,  taught  and 
published.'  Calumny  and  malice  fill  the  book  from 
cover  to  cover.  There  is  no  crime  which  the  Jesuits 
did  not  teach  or  of  which  they  are  not  accused.  Never 
was  bad  faith  carried  to  such  extremes.  And  yet 
there  is  no  book  that  is  so  often  cited  as  an  authority 
against  the  Society  and  its  spirit." 

Meantime,  the  government  had  approached  the 
Pope  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  for  the  French 
Jesuits  a  special  vicar  who  should  be  quasi-independent 
of  the  General.  It  was  harking  back  to  the  old  scheme 
of  Philip  II  and  Louis  XIV.  His  Holiness  replied 
in  the  memorable  words:  "  Sint  ut  sunt  aut  non  sint  " 
(Let  them  be  as  they  are  or  not  at  all.)  We  find  in 
a  letter  of  the  procurator  of  Aquitaine  that  in  case  a 
vicar  was  appointed  every  member  of  the  province 
of  Paris  would  leave  the  Order,  which  under  such  an 
arrangement  would  be  no  longer  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
Again  in  his  letter  to  the  king,  after  declaring  that  the 
appointment  of  a  French  Vicar  would  be  a  substantial 
alteration  of  the  Institute  which  he  could  not  authorize, 
the  Pope  says:  "  For  two  hundred  years  the  Society  has 
been  so  useful  to  the  Church,  that,  though  it  has  never 
disturbed  the  public  tranquillity  either  in  your  kingdom 
or  in  any  one  else's,  yet  because  it  has  inflicted  such 
damage  on  the  enemies  of  religion  by  its  science  and 
its  piety,  it  is  assailed  on  all  sides  by  calumny  and 
imposture  when  fair  fighting  was  found  insufficient  to 


490  The  Jesuits 

destroy  them."  Finally,  on  January  9,  1765,  after 
the  final  knell  had  sounded,  Clement  XIII  issued  his 
famous  Bull  "  Apostolicum."  It  is  given  at  length  in 
de  Ravignan's  "Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV,"  but 
a  few  extracts  will  suffice. 

After  enumerating  the  glories  of  the  Society  in  the 
past,  and  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
approved  by  nineteen  Popes,  who  had  most  minutely 
examined  their  Institute,  Clement  XIII  continues: 
"  It  has,  nevertheless,  in  our  days  been  falsely  and 
malignantly  described  both  by  word  and  printed  book 
as  irreligious  and  impious,  and  has  been  covered  with 
opprobrium  and  ignominy  until  even  the  Church  has 
been  denounced  for  sustaining  it.  In  order,  therefore, 
to  repel  these  calumnies  and  to  put  a  stop  to  the  impious 
discourses  which  are  uttered  in  defiance  of  both  reason 
and  equity;  and  to  comfort  the  Regular  Clerks  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus  who  appeal  to  us  for  justice;  and  to 
give  greater  emphasis  to  our  words  by  the  weight  of 
our  authority  and  to  lend  some  solace  in  the  sufferings 
they  are  undergoing;  and  finally  to  defer  to  the  just 
desires  of  our  venerable  brothers,  the  bishops  of  the 
whole  Catholic  world,  whose  letters  to  us  are  filled  with 
eulogies  of  this  Society  from  whose  labors  the  greatest 
services  are  rendered  in  their  dioceses;  and  also  of 
our  own  accord  and  from  certain  knowledge,  and 
making  use  of  the  plenitude  of  our  Apostolic  authority, 
and  following  in  the  footsteps  of  our  predecessors,  we, 
by  this  present  Constitution,  which  is  to  remain  in 
force  forever,  say  and  declare  in  the  same  form  and 
in  the  same  manner  as  has  been  heretofore  said  and 
declared,  that  the  Institute  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
breathes  in  the  very  highest  degree,  piety  and  holiness 
both  in  the  principal  object  which  it  has  continually 
in  view,  which  is  none  other  than  the  defence  and  propa- 
gation of  the  Catholic  Faith,  and  also  in  the  means  it 


Choiseul  491 

employs  for  that  end.  Such  is  our  experience  of  it 
up  to  the  present  day.  It  is  this  experience  which 
has  taught  us  how  greatly  the  rule  of  the  Society  has 
formed  up  to  our  day  defenders  of  the  orthodox  Faith 
and  zealous  missionaries  who  animated  by  an  invincible 
courage  dare  a  thousand  dangers  on  land  and  sea, 
to  carry  the  light  of  the  Gospel  to  savage  and  barbarous 

nations Let  no  one  dare  be  rash  enough  to  set 

himself  against  this  my  present  approbative  and  con- 
firmative Constitution  lest  he  incur  the  wrath  of  God." 
These  splendid  approvals  of  their  labors  did  much 
to  keep  up  the  courage  of  the  harassed  Jesuits,  but  if 
what  Father  de  Ravignan  and  Cretineau-Joly  relate 
be  true,  they  had  ample  reason  to  keep  themselves  in 
a  salutary  humility  or  rather  bow  their  heads  in  shame. 
On  December  19,  1761,  we  are  told,  the  provincial  of 
Paris,  Father  de  La  Croix  and  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
Fathers  addressed  a  declaration  to  the  clergy  assembled 
in  Paris,  by  order  of  the  king,  which  ran  as  follows: 
"  We  the  undersigned,  provincial  of  the  Jesuits  of  the 
province  of  Paris,  the  superior  of  the  professed  house, 
the  rector  of  the  College  of  Louis  Le  Grand,  the 
superior  of  the  novitiate  and  other  Jesuits  professed, 
even  of  the  first  vows,  residing  in  the  said  houses,  and 
renewing  as  far  as  needs  be  the  declarations  already 
made  by  the  Jesuits  of  France  in  1626,  1713  and  1757, 
declare  before  their  Lordships  the  cardinals,  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  now  assembled  in  Paris,  by  order 
of  the  king,  to  give  their  opinion  on  several  points  of 
the  Institute:  (i)  That  it  is  impossible  to  be  more 
submissive  than  we  are,  or  more  inviolably  attached 
to  the  laws,  maxims  and  usages  of  this  kingdom  with 
regard  to  the  royal  power,  which  in  temporal  matters 
depends  neither  directly  nor  indirectly  from  any  power 
on  earth,  and  has  God  alone  above  it.  Recognizing 
that  the  bonds  by  which  subjects  are  attached  to  their 


492  The  Jesuits 

rulers  are  indissoluble,  we  condemn  as  pernicious  and 
worthy  of  execration  at  all  times  every  doctrine  con- 
trary to  the  safety  of  the  king,  not  only  in  the  works  of 
some  theologians  of  our  Society  who  have  adopted 
such  doctrines  but  also  those  of  every  other  theologian 
whosoever  he  may  be.  (2)  We  shall  teach  in  our 
public  and  private  lessons  of  theology  the  doctrine 
established  by  the  Clergy  of  France  in  the  Four  Articles 
of  the  Assembly  of  1682,  and  shall  teach  nothing 
contrary  to  it.  (3)  We  recognize  that  the  bishops  of 
France  have  the  right  to  exercise  in  our  regard  what, 
according  to  the  canons  of  the  Gallican  Church, 
belongs  to  them  in  their  dealings  with  regulars; 
and  we  renounce  all  the  privileges  to  the  contrary 
that  may  have  been  accorded  to  our  Society  or  may 
be  accorded  in  the  future.  (4)  If,  which  may  God 
forbid,  it  happens  that  we  are  ordered  by  our  General 
to  do  anything  contrary  to  the  present  declaration, 
persuaded  as  we  are  that  we  cannot  obey  without  sin, 
we  shall  regard  such  orders  as  unlawful,  and  absolutely 
null  and  void;  which  we  could  not  and  should  not  obey 
in  virtue  of  the  rules  of  obedience  to  the  General  such 
as  is  prescribed  in  the  Constitutions.  We,  therefore, 
beg  that  the  present  declaration  may  be  placed  on  the 
official  register  of  Paris,  and  addressed  to  the  other 
provinces  of  the  kingdom,  so  that  this  same  declaration 
signed  by  us,  being  deposited  in  the  official  registers  of 
each  diocese  may  serve  as  a  perpetual  memorial  of 
our  fidelity. 

Etienne  de  la  Croix,     Provincial." 

Quoting  this  document  and  admitting  its  genuineness 
Father  de  Ravignan  exclaims:  "  In  my  eyes  nothing 
can  excuse  this  act  of  weakness.  I  deplore  it ;  I  condemn 
it;  I  shall  merely  relate  how  it  came  to  pass"  (Clement 
XIII  et  Clement  XIV,  I  135).  He  goes  on  to  say:- 


Choiseul  493 

"  In  a  personal  letter  the  original  of  which  is  in  the 
archives  of  the  Gesu  at  Rome,  Father  La  Croix, 
provincial  of  Paris  explains  to  the  General  the  circum- 
stances and  occasion  of  this  unfortunate  affair.  He 
tells  how  the  royal  commissioners  came  to  him  with 
the  aforesaid  declaration  already  drawn  up  and  accom- 
panied by  a  formal  order  of  the  king  to  sign  it  immedi- 
ately. It  was  a  most  unforeseen  demand,  for  although 
the  Jesuits  of  France  had  already  suffered  considerable 
trouble  about  the  question  of  the  Four  Articles  in 
1713,  and  also  in  1757,  when  Damiens  attempted  to 
assassinate  Louis  XV,  they  had  been  compelled  on 
both  occasions  to  sign  only  the  first  article  which 
dealt  with  the  temporal  independence  of  the  king. 
Shortly  afterwards,  a  new  royal  decree  had  been  brought 
to  their  attention.  It  consisted  of  eighteen  articles, 
the  fourth  of  which  was  as  follows:  '  Our  will  is  that 
in  every  theological  course  followed  by  the  students  of 
the  Society,  the  propositions  set  forth  by  the  Clergy 
of  France  in  1682,  should  be  defended,  at  least  in  one 
public  discussion,  to  which  the  principal  personages 
of  the  place  shall  be  invited,  and  over  and  above  that, 
the  arrangements  laid  down  by  the  edict  of  March 
1682  shall  be  observed.' 

"  While  these  matters  were  being  debated  by  the 
king  and  his  ministers  on  one  side  and  by  parliament 
on  the  other,  a  royal  order  was  despatched  to  the 
Jesuits  of  Paris  to  affix  their  signatures  to  the  disgrace- 
ful capitulation  given  above.  It  is  said  that  Louis 
XV  imagined  that  he  could  mollify  the  recalcitrant 
parliament  by  this  new  concession:  and,  hence,  La 
Croix  and  his  associates  were  foolish  enough  to  imagine 
that  such  a  result  could  ensue." 

Continuing  his  indictment  of  La  Croix  and  his 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  associates,  de  Ravignan 
informs  his  readers  that  "an  unpublished  document 


494  The  Jesuits 

which  no  writer  has  so  far  made  mention  of,  furnishes 
important  details  about  the  matter.  It  is  entitled 
'  An  exact  relation  of  all  that  took  place  with  regard 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  decree  of  Aquaviva  in 
1610,  which  was  sent  to  Rome  in  1761  and  rejected 
by  the  General;  and  also  the  declaration  which  the 
General  refused  to  approve.'  The  author  is  M.  de 
Flesselles,  who  was  charged  by  the  commission  to 
report  to  Choiseul  whose  agent  he  was. 

"  With  regard  to  the  declaration  about  Gallicanism  " 
says  de  Flesselles  "  the  Jesuits,  after  some  difficulties 
regarding  its  form,  determined  to  sign  it,  and  even 
when  urged  by  the  royal  commissioners  they  undertook 
to  send  it  to  their  General  for  approbation.  Soon 
after,  when  the  Jesuits  received  the  reply  of  their 
General,  the  provincial  came  to  tell  me  that  when  the 
Pope  was  made  aware  of  the  declaration  which  the 
French  Jesuits  had  made  and  of  the  one  they  proposed 
to  make,  His  Holiness  angrily  reprimanded  the  General 
for  permitting  the  members  of  the  Society  in  France 
to  maintain  doctrines  which  are  in  conflict  with  the 
teachings  of  the  Holy  See." 

i  Now  it  is  unpleasant  to  contest  the  authority  of  such 
an  eminent  man  as  de  Ravignan,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  his  conclusions  that  this  letter  was  a  Jesuit 
production  or  received  a  Jesuit  endorsement  are  by  no 
means  convincing.  In  the  first  place,  no  Jesuit  would 
ever  sign  a  paper  which  began  with  the  words:  "  We 
the  Professed,  even  of  the  first  vows."  There  is  no 
such  category  in  the  Society.  Secondly,  no  Jesuit  or 
indeed  any  one  in  his  senses  would  ever  ask  a  superior 
for  a  permission  to  teach  error,  and  say,  in  the 
same  breath,  that  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  the  permission  was  granted  or  not.  Thirdly, 
as  all  the  Jesuits  of  the  province  had  announced  their 
intention  of  leaving  the  Society  if  Louis  XV  imposed 


Choiseul  495 

on  them  a  commissary  General  independent  of  their 
superior  at  Rome  —  as  we  recited  above  from  an 
extant  letter  from  the  procurator  of  the  province  of 
Aquitaine  —  it  is  inconceivable  that  those  same  men, 
at  that  very  same  time  should  solemnly  declare  them- 
selves rebels  against  the  Father  General  at  Rome. 
Fourthly,  as  no  association  rewards  a  man  who 
attempts  to  destroy  it,  one  finds  difficulty  in  under- 
standing how,  after  this  revolt,  the  'leader  in  the  re- 
bellion, La  Croix,  was  not  only  not  expelled  from  the 
Society  but  was  retained  in  his  responsible  post  of 
provincial  and  later  was  made  assistant  general  of  the 
Society. 

Moreover,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  why,  when 
de  Flesselles  says  that  "  the  Fathers  determined  to  sign 
the  document,"  de  Ravignan  should  go  one  step  further 
and  say  that  "  they  signed  it."  Nor  does  it  help  matters 
to  say  that  this  was  "  un  acte  de  faiblesse"  when,  it 
was  a  wholesale,  corporate  and  deliberate  crime  of 
cowardice  and  treason ;  nor  will  it  avail  to  suggest  that 
the  Pope  and  General  must  have  been  intensely,  grieved 
— "  Us  durent  £tre  amerement  affliges."  History  does 
not  deal  with  conjectures  but  with  facts.  The  question 
is  not  whether  they  must  have  been,  but  whether  they 
were  really  grieved  over  an  act  which  had  really  occurred 
and  which  reflected  such  discredit  on  the  Society? 
Again,  as  one  of  the  greatest  glories  of  the  French 
Jesuits  was  their  long  and  successful  battle  against 
Gallicanism,  it  is  inconceivable  that  they  should 
suddenly  reverse  and  stultify  themselves  at  the  very 
moment  when  all  the  bishops  of  France,  save  one, 
had  abandoned  Gallicanism  and  had  united  in  eulogiz- 
ing the  Society;  and  to  do  it  at  a  time  when  the  greatest 
friend  they  ever  had,  Pope  Clement  XIII,  glorified 
them  for  their  orthodoxy  and  pronounce^dfthe  famous 
words:  "  Let  them  be  as  they  are  or  not  at  all! " 


496  The  Jesuits 

To  have  declared  for  Gallicanism  would  have 
stripped  them  of  their  priestly  functions,  it  would 
have  aroused  the  intense  disgust  and  contempt  of  the 
hierarchy  of  France  and  of  the  world  and  would  have 
called  down  on  them  the  anathema  of  the  Pope.  Indeed, 
is  it  likely  that  Pope  Clement  XIV  would  have  omitted 
to  note  the  defection  in  his  Brief  of  Suppression,  if 
they  had  been  guilty?  Fortunately,  we  may  refer  to 
the  explicit  declaration  of  the  Protestant  historian, 
Schoell  (Cours  d'histoire,  xl,  53),  who  says:  "These 
men  who  are  accused  of  playing  with  religion,  refused 
to  take  the  oath  to  sustain  the  principles  of  the  Gallican 
Church.  Of  4000  Fathers  who  were  in  France,  hardly 
five  submitted."  If  there  were  "  hardly  five  "  Gallicans 
in  all  the  provinces  of  France,  it  is  a  justifiable  con- 
clusion that  116  Jesuits  of  the  provinces  of  Paris  did 
not  sign  the  famous  "  Statement  "  of  de  Flesselles. 

Louis  XV  made  a  feeble  attempt  to  save  the  situation 
by  withdrawing  the  decree  of  expulsion  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  parliament,  but  Mme.  de  Pompadour 
and  Choiseul  so  effectively  worked  on  his  fears  that 
he  ignominiously  rescinded  his  order.  The  Pope  had 
meantime  delivered  an  allocution  in  a  consistory  on 
September  3,  1762;  and  had  sent  a  letter  to  Cardinal 
Choiseul,  the  brother  of  the  minister,  on  September  8 
of  the  same  year,  in  both  of  which  he  declared  that 
"  by  a  solemn  decree,  he  had  quashed  and  nullified 
the  proceedings  of  the  various  parliaments  against 
the  Jesuits."  He  enjoined  upon  the  cardinal  "  to  use 
all  his  episcopal  power  against  the  impious  act  which 
was  directed  against  the  Church  and  against  religion." 
He  wrote  to  other  bishops  in  the  same  tone  of  indig- 
nation and  anger.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the 
November  of  1764  that  Choiseul  succeeded  in  extorting 
the  royal  signature  which  made  the  decree  irrevocable. 
Of  course,  Mme.  de  Pompadour  was  to  the  fore  in 


Choiseul  497 

securing  this  shameful  surrender  of  the  royal  preroga- 
tive. The  poor  king  cuts  a  sorry  figure  in  signing  the 
document.  After  making  some  feeble  scrawls  on  the 
paper,  he  complained  that  the  preamble  was  too  long 
and  that  it  would  have  sufficed  to  state  that  "  the 
Jesuits  had  produced  a  great  tumult  in  his  kingdom." 
He  added  he  did  not  think  the  word  "  punish  "  should 
be  used;  it  was  too  strong;  "  he  never  cordially  liked 
the  Jesuits,  yet  they  had  the  glory  of  being  hated  by 

all  heretics I   send  them  out   of  my  kingdom 

against  my  will;  at  least,  I  don't  want  people  to  think 
that  I  agree  with  everything  the  parliament  said  or 
did  against  them."  He  ended  by  saying:  "  If 
you  do  not  make  these  changes,  I  will  not  sign,  but 
I  must  stop  talking.  I  would  say  too  much  and  I 
do  not  want  anyone  in  France  to  discuss  it."  One 
could  hardly  say  of  Louis  that  "  he  was  every  inch  a 
king." 

The  desire  to  close  the  mouths  of  every  one  of  his 
subjects  on  a  matter  that  concerned  them  all  as 
intelligent  beings  and  as  citizens  was  carried  out  with 
extreme  rigor.  Thus,  when  two  secular  priests  had 
the  temerity  to  condemn  the  decree,  they  were  promptly 
hanged.  The  audacity  of  the  ministers  and  parliament 
went  still  further;  and  on  December  3  the  Duke  de 
Praslin  sent  a  note  to  Aubeterre,  the  French  ambassador 
at  Rome  to  advise  him  that  "  under  the  circumstances, 
it  would  be  very  futile  and  still  more  dangerous  for  the 
Pope  to  take  any  measures  either  directly  or  indirectly 
in  contravention  of  the  wishes  and  intention  of  his 
majesty;  and  hence  His  Holiness  must,  out  of  zeal  for 
religion  and  out  of  regard  for  the  Jesuits,  observe  the 
same  silence  which  His  Majesty  had  ordered  to  be 
observed  in  his  states."  The  Pope  replied  to  the  insult 
by  the  Bull  "Apostolicum,"  which  was  a  splendid 
proclamation  of  the  absolute  innocence  of  the  pro- 
32 


498  The  Jesuits 

scribed  Order.  It  aroused  the  fury  of  the  Governments 
of  France,  Portugal,  Naples  and  other  countries.  In 
France  it  was  burned  in  the  streets  of  several  cities 
by  the  public  executioner.  In  Portugal,  any  one 
who  circulated  it  or  had  it  in  his  possession  was  adjudged 
guilty  of  high  treason ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  from  the 
bishops  of  the  entire  Catholic  world  came  enthusiastic 
letters  of  approval  and  praise  for  the  fearless  Pope 
who  dared  to  stand  forth  as  the  enemy  of  tyranny  and 
injustice. 

Bohmer-Monod,  in  their  "  Jesuites,"  are  of  the 
opinion  that  the  Pope  was  "  injudicious,  and  that  out 
of  the  hundreds  of  Catholic  bishops,  only  twenty- 
three  assured  him  of  their  approbation. ' '  De  Ravignan, 
who  is  better  informed,  tells  us  that  "  almost  the  whole 
episcopacy  of  the  world  were  a  unit  in  this  manifesta- 
tion of  loyalty  to  the  supreme  Pastor.  Before  the 
event,  two  hundred  bishops  had  sent  their  appeals  to 
the  Pope,  in  favor  of  the  Society;  and  the  Pope  himself 
says  in  the  Bull:  "  Ex  omni  regione  sub  ccelo  est  una 
vox  omnium  episcoporum "  (From  every  region 
under  the  canopy  of  heaven,  there  is  but  one  voice 
from  the  episcopal  body).  After  the  Bull  appeared, 
other  bishops  hastened  to  send  him  their  adhesions 
and  felicitations.  Even  in  France  itself,  in  spite  of  the 
terrorism  exercised  by  parliament,  the  assembly  of  the 
clergy  of  1765,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  protested  against 
the  condemnation  of  the  Jesuits,  extolled  "  the  integrity 
of  their  morals,  the  austerity  of  their  lives,  the  greatness 
of  their  labors  and  science";  and  declared  that  their 
expulsion  left  a  frightful  void  in  the  ministry,  in 
education,  and  in  the  sublime  and  laborious  work  of 
the  missions.  Not  only  that,  but  they  wanted  it  put 
on  record  that  "  the  clergy  would  never  cease  to 
pray  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  Order  and 
would  lay  that  plea  at  the  feet  of  the  king." 


Choiseul  499 

The  exiles  lingered  for  a  while  in  various  parts  of 
France;  for  some  of  the  divisional  parliaments  were 
not  at  one  with  Paris  in  their  opposition  to  the  Society. 
Indeed,  in  many  of  them,  the  proscription  was  voted 
only  by  a  small  majority.  Thus  at  Rennes,  there  was 
a  majority  of  three;  at  Toulouse  two;  at  Perpignan 
one;  at  Bordeaux  five;  at  Aix  two;  while  Besancon, 
Alsace,  Flanders  and  Artois  and  Lorraine  pronounced 
in  their  favor  and  proclaimed  "  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius 
as  the  most  faithful  subjects  of  the  King  of  France 
and  the  surest  guarantees  of  the  morality  of  the  people." 
On  the  other  hand,  Brittany,  the  country  of  Chalotais, 
author  of  the  "  Extraits,"  was  especially  rancorous  in 
its  hate.  Thus,  it  voted  to  deprive  of  all  civil  and 
municipal  functions  those  parents  who  would  send 
their  children  abroad  to  Jesuit  schools ;  and  the  children 
on  their  return  home  were  to  be  punished  in  a  similar 
fashion.  The  Fathers  lingered  for  a  few  years  hero 
and  there  in  their  native  country  employed  in  various 
occupations;  but  in  1767  a  decree  was  issued  expelling 
them  all  from  the  territory  of  France. 

An  interesting  manifestation  of  affection  by  the 
pupils  of  St.  Omers  for  their  persecuted  masters  occurred 
when  the  parliament  of  Paris  issued  its  order  of  ex- 
pulsion in  1767.  St.  Omers  was  founded  by  Father 
Persons  in  1592  or  1593.  It  was  not  for  ecclesiastics 
as  were  the  colleges  of  Douai,  Rome  and  Valladolid, 
but  to  give  English  boys  an  education  which  they  could 
not  get  in  their  own  -  country.  It  was  twenty -four 
miles  from  Calais  and  in  territory  which  at  that  time 
belonged  to  the  King  of  Spain.  Shortly  after  its 
transfer  from  Eu  in  Normandy  where  an  attempt 
had  been  made  to  start  it,  there  were  one  hundred 
boys  on  its  register  and,  thirty  years  later,  the  number 
had  doubled.  For  years  it  was  a  favorite  school  for 
English  Catholics  and  it  rejoices  in  having  had  twenty 


500  The  Jesuits 

of  its  students  die  for  the  Faith.  It  continued  its 
work  for  a  century  and  a  half.  When  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jesuits  left  the  college  without  teachers  it  was 
handed  over  to  the  secular  clergy,  but  when  they 
arrived  there  were  no  boys.  They  had  all  decamped 
for  Bruges  in  Belgium,  and  there  the  classes  continued 
until  the  general  suppression  of  the  Society  in  1773. 
Even  after  that,  the  English  ex-Jesuits  kept  the 
college  going  until  1794,  when  the  French  Revolution 
put  an  end  to  it.  By  that  time,  however,  one  of  the 
former  students,  Mr.  Thomas  Weld,  had  established  the 
Fathers  on  his  property  at  Stonyhurst  in  England,  so 
that  St.  Omers  and  Stonyhurst  are  mother  and 
daughter. 

The  buildings  and  land  at  St.  Omers  were  handed 
over  by  the  French  government  to  the  English  secular 
priests,  who  were  at  Douai.  Alban  Butler,  the  author 
of  .the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints,"  was  its  president  from 
1766  to  1773.  At  present  a  military  hospital  occupies 
the  site. 

In  Louisiana,  which  still  owed  allegiance  to  France, 
the  dismissal  of  the  Fathers  was  particularly  disgrace- 
ful. For  no  sooner  had  the  news  of  Choiseul's  exploit 
in  the  mother-country  arrived  than  the  superior 
council  of  Louisiana  set  to  work.  "  This  insignificant 
body  of  provincial  officers  "  as  Shea  calls  them  (I,  587), 
"  issued  a  decree  declaring  the  Society  to  be  dangerous 
to  the  royal  authority,  to  the  rights  of  bishops,  to  the 
public  peace  of  society  "  and  pronounced  their  vows 
to  be  null  and  void.  These  judges  in  matters  eccle- 
siastical, it  should  be  noted,  were  all  laymen.  They 
ordered  all  the  property  to  be  seized  and  sold  at  auction, 
though  personal  books  and  clothes  were  exempted. 
The  name  and  habit  of  the  Society  were  forbidden; 
the  vestments  and  plate  of  the  chapel  at  New  Orleans 
were  given  by  the  authorities  to  the  Capuchins;  but 


Choiseul  501 

all  the  Jesuit  churches  in  Louisiana  and  Illinois  were 
ordered  to  be  levelled  to  the  ground.  Every  Jesuit 
was  to  embark  on  the  first  ship  that  set  sail  for  France ; 
and  arriving  there,  he  was  to  report  to  Choiseul.  Each 
one  was  given  about  $420  —  to  pay  for  his  passage 
and  six  month's  subsistence. 

There  was  a  deviation  in  some  cases  about  going  to 
France,  for  Father  Carette  was  sent  to  San  Domingo; 
and  Father  Le  Roy  made  his  way  to  Mexico.  A  diffi- 
culty arose  about  Father  Beaudoin,  who  was  a 
Canadian.  Why  should  he  be  sent  to  France  where 
he  had  no  friends?  Besides,  his  health  was  shattered 
by  his  privations  on  the  missions,  and  he  was  at  that 
time  seventy-two  years  old.  He  was  to  go  to  France, 
however,  but  just  as  he  was  about  to  be  dragged  to 
the  ship  a  wealthy  friend  interceded  for  him  and 
gave  him  a  home.  Another  Father  in  Alabama  did 
not  hear  of  the  order  for  several  months;  and  when 
at  last  he  made  his  appearance  in  New  Orleans,  he 
was  arrested  like  a  criminal  and  packed  off  to  France. 

On  September  22,  a  courier  reached  Fort  Chartres, 
which  was  on  English  territory;  and  in  spite  of  the 
danger  of  embroiling  the  government,  Father  Watron 
w,ho  was  then  sixty-seven  years  old  was  expelled,  and 
with  him  his  two  fellow  missionaries.  The  official 
from  Louisiana  gave  the  vestments  to  negro  wenches 
and  the  altar-plate  and  candelabra  were  soon  found 
in  houses  of  ill-fame.  The  chapel  was  then  sold  on 
condition  that  the  purchaser  should  demolish  it.  At 
Vincennes,  the  same  outrages  were  perpetrated  and 
Father  Duvernay,  who  had  been  for  six  months  con- 
fined to  his  bed,  was  carried  off  with  the  others  to  New 
Orleans  and  despatched  to  France.  Two  only  were 
allowed  to  remain,  owing  to  the  entreaties  and  protests 
of  friends.  One  of  the  exiles  was  Father  Viel,  who 
was  a  Louisianian  by  birth.  The  most  conspicuous 


502  The  Jesuits 

personage  enforcing  this  expulsion  was  a  certain 
Lafreniere,  but  he  soon  met  his  punishment.  In  1766 
Louis  XV  made  a  gift  of  the  entire  province  to  his 
cousin  of  Spain,  and  when  Count  Alexander  O'Reilly 
was  sent  out  with  three  thousand  soldiers  to  quell  the 
disturbance  that  ensued,  Lafreniere  and  three  associates 
were  taken  into  the  back  yard  of  the  barracks  and  shot 
to  death.  Others  were  sent  in  chains  to  Havana. 

Thus  the  Suppression  of  the  Society  in  France  was 
not  carried  out  with  the  same  brutality  as  in  Portugal. 
There  were  no  prisons,  or  chains,  or  deportation,  and 
they  had  not  the  glory  of  suffering  martyrdom.  They 
were  merely  stripped  of  all  they  had  and  told  to  go  where 
they  wished.  Whether  they  lived  or  died  was  a  matter 
of  unconcern  to  the  government.  It  was  merely  a 
difference  of  methods;  but  both  were  equally  effective. 
The  Portuguese  Jesuits  were  scourged;  their  French 
brethren  were  sneered  at.  Perhaps  the  latter  was 
harder  to  bear. 

There  is  a  curious  sequel  to  all  this.  Choiseul, 
proud  of  his  achievement  in  expelling  the  Jesuits  from 
France  and  its  colonies,  now  conceived  the  magnificent 
project  of  colonizing  Guyana  on  lines  quite  different 
from  those  followed  by  the  detested  Order.  He  induced 
14,000  deluded  French  people  to  go  and  take  possession 
of  the  rich  and  fertile  lands  of  Guyana.  They  found 
one  poor  old  Jesuit  there,  who  because  he  was  not 
a  subject  of  France,  had  refused  to  obey  the  decree 
of  expulsion.  His  name  was  O'Reilly,  but  what  could 
he  do  with  14,000  people  He  simply  disappeared 
from  the  scene.  Very  likely,  he  joined  the  Indians, 
who  fled  into  the  forests  at  the  sight  of  this  immense 
army  of  Frenchmen,  who  now  had  the  country  to 
themselves  without  striking  a  blow.  But  two  years 
later,  Chevalier  de  Balzac  had  to  report  back  to  France, 
that  of  the  14,000  colonists  only  918  were  alive.  Thus, 


Choiseul  503 

expelling  6,000  Jesuits  from  France,  Choiseul  had 
murdered  13,000  of  his  fellow-countrymen  (Christian 
Missions,  II,  168). 

In  1766,  M.  de  Piedmont,  the  governor  wrote  to  the 
Due  de  Praslin,   that  he  had  already  informed  the 
Due  de  Choiseul  how  necessary  it  was  to  send  priests 
to  this  colony.     He  then  described  the  destruction  of 
the  mission  posts,  the  flight  of  the  Indians,  the  growth 
of  crime  amongst  the  negroes  and  the  rapid  ruin  of 
the  colony,  and  added  that  religion  was  dying  out 
among  the  whites  as  well  as  among  the  colored  races. 
For  ten  years,  he  kept  on  repeating  this  complaint, 
but  no  heed  was  paid  to  him.     At  length,  Louis  XVI, 
who  was  so  soon  to  be  himself  a  victim  of  Choiseul's 
iniquity   sent   there,    three   Jesuits,    not   Frenchmen, 
perhaps  he  had  not  the  heart  to  ask  any  of  them, 
but  three  Jesuits,  who  had  been  expelled  from  Portugal 
by  Pombal,  Choiseul's  accomplice.     They  were  Padilla, 
Mathos,  and  Ferreira.     They  accepted  the  mission  and 
the  "Journal  "  of  Christopher  de  Murr  says:     "  The 
poor  savages  beholding  once  again  men  clothed  in  the 
habit  which  they  had  learned  to  venerate,  and  hearing 
them  speak  their  own  language,   fell  at  their  feet, 
bathing  them  with  tears,  and  promised  to  become  once 
more  good  Christians,   since  the  Fathers,   who  had 
begotten  them  in  Jesus  Christ,  had  come  back  to  them." 
No  doubt,  these  three  holy  men  remained  till  they 
died  with  their  poor  abandoned  Indians. 

France's  folly  in  this  governmental  act  was  summed 
up  in  a  letter  of  d'Alembert  to  Choiseul,  just  before 
the  expulsion.  In  it  he  says:  "  France  will  resort  to 
this  rigorous  measure  against  its  own  subjects  at  the 
very  moment  she  is  doing  nothing  in  her  foreign  policy, 
and  in  the  chronological  epitomes  of  the  future  we  shall 
read  the  words  for  the  year  1762 :  '  This  year  France 
lost  all  her  colonies  and  threw  out  the  Jesuits.'  " 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CHARLES   III 

The  Bourbon  Kings  of  Spain  —  Character  of  Charles  III  —  Spanish 
Ministries  —  O'Reilly  —  The  Hat  and  Cloak  Riot  —  Cowardice  of 
Charles  —  Tricking  the  monarch  —  The  Decree  of  Suppression  — 
Grief  of  the  Pope  —  His  death  —  Disapproval  in  France  by  the  Ency- 
clopedists —  The  Royal  Secret  —  Simultaneousness  of  the  Suppres- 
sion —  Wanderings  of  the  Exiles  —  Pignatelli  —  Expulsion  by  Tanucci. 

SPAIN  had  begun  to  deteriorate  in  the  seventeenth 
century;  it  lost  all  of  its  European  dependencies  in 
the  eighteenth,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
was  stripped  of  almost  every  one  of  its  rich  and  powerful 
colonies  in  America.  During  two-thirds  of  that  period, 
it  was  governed  by  foreigners,  none  of  whom  had  any 
claim  to  consideration,  much  less  respect.  Until  1700 
it  owed  allegiance  to  the  house  of  Austria;  after  that, 
the  French  Bourbons  hurried  it  to  its  ruin. 

Its  first  Bourbon  king,  Philip  V,  had  already,  in  1713, 
succeeded  in  losing  Sicily,  Milan,  Sardinia,  the  Nether- 
lands, Gibraltar,  and  the  Island  of  Minorca;  that  is 
one-half  of  its  European  possessions.  Meantime, 
Catalonia  was  in  rebellion.  But  little  else  could  be 
expected  from  such  a  ruler.  He  was  not  only  consti- 
tutionally indolent,  but  apparently  mentally  defective. 
His  queen  kept  him  in  seclusion,  and  he  did  nothing 
but  at  her  dictation;  he  was  professedly  devout,  but 
was  racked  by  ridiculous  scruples;  "  outwardly  pious," 
says  Schoell,  quoting  Saint-Simon,  "  but  heedless  of 
the  fundamental  principles  of  religion;  he  was  timid 
and  hence  sporadically  stubborn;  and  when  not  in 
temper,  he  was  easily  led.  He  was  without  imagi- 
nation, except  that  he  was  continually  dreaming  of 
conquering  Europe,  although  he  never  left  Madrid;  he 

504 


Charles  III  505 

was  satisfied  with  the  gloomiest  existence,  and  his 
only  amusement  was  shooting  at  game,  which  his 
servants  drove  into  the  brush  for  him  to  kill."  His 
conscience  often  smote  him  for  the  sin  he  said  he  had 
committed  when  he  renounced  his  claim  to  the  throne 
of  France;  and,  in  consequence,  he  made  a  vow  to  lay 
aside  the  Spanish  crown  until  what  time  he  should  be 
summoned  by  England  to  be  King  of  France.  To  help 
him  keep  his  vow,  he  built  the  palace  of  San  Ildefonso, 
which  cost  the  nation  45,000,000  pesos.  He  appointed 
his  son  Louis,  a  lad  of  17,  to  reign  in  his  stead,  and  the 
boy,  of  course,  did  nothing  but  enjoy  himself,  and 
died  of  small-pox  in  six  months'  time,  having  first  gone 
through  the  ridiculous  farce  of  making  his  father  his 
heir.  Philip  then  began  to  doubt  whether  he  could 
resume  his  duties  as  king  after  having  vowed  to 
relinquish  them.  Besides  being  thus  troubled  with 
scruples,  he  was  in  constant  dread  of  catching  the 
disease  which  carried  off  his  son;  he  died  of  apoplexy, 
July  9,  1764  at  the  age  ot  53. 

Ferdinand  VI,  who  succeeded  him,  was  as  indolent 
as  his  father,  and  with  less  talent  and  strength  of  will; 
he  was  afflicted  with  melancholia,  and  like  his  father 
was  haunted  by  the  fear  of  death.  He  took  no  part 
in  the  government  of  the  kingdom,  but  spent  most  of 
his  time  listening  to  the  warblings  of  the  male-soprano, 
Farinelli,  who  was  so  adored  by  the  king  that  he  was 
sometimes  consulted  on  state  affairs.  The  queen  was 
another  of  his  idols,  and  when  she  died,  he  shut  himself 
in,  saw  no  one,  would  eat  next  to  nothing;  never 
changed  his  linen;  let  his  hair  and  beard  grow,  and 
never  went  to  bed.  An  hour  or  two  in  a  chair  was 
all  he  allowed  himself  for  rest.  He  died  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  leaving  a  private  fortune  of  72,000,000 
francs.  He  was  only  forty-seven  years  old.  Like  the 
king,  the  queen  was  dominated  by  fear,  not  however 


506  The  Jesuits 

of  death,  but  of  poverty.  To  guard  against  that 
contingency  she  hoarded  all  the  money  she  could  get; 
accepted  whatever  presents  were  offered;  and  let  it  be 
known  that  the  easiest  way  to  win  her  favor  was  to 
have  something  to  give.  It  is  gravely  said  that 
though  she  was  very  corpulent  she  was  extravagantly 
fond  of  dancing. 

Ferdinand  VI  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  Charles 
III,  who  had  been  King  of  Naples  for  twenty-four 
years.  He  had  six  sons,  the  eldest  of  whom,  Philip 
Anthony  was  then  twelve  years  of  age,  but  a  hopeless 
imbecile.  The  right  of  succession,  therefore,  devolved 
on  his  second  son.  The  third,  who  was  then  eight 
years  old,  was  to  succeed  to  the  crown  of  Naples, 
and  was  left  in  the  hands  of  Tanucci  to  be  trained 
for  his  future  office.  As  Tanucci  was  a  bitter  enemy  of 
Christianity,  this  act  of  Charles,  who  had  a  Jesuit 
confessor  and  was  regarded  as  a  pious  man,  would 
imply  that  he  also  was  mentally  deficient.  Like  his 
forebears,  he  was  haunted  by  a  fear  of  death,  a  weakness 
that  revealed  itself  in  all  his  political  acts,  notably  in 
the  suppression  of  the  Society.  That  was  one  of  the 
reasons  why,  long  after  France  and  Portugal  would 
have  willingly  ended  the  fight  with  the  expulsion  of 
the  Jesuits,  the  supposedly  pious  Charles  persisted  until 
he  had  wrung  the  Brief  of  Suppression  from  the  un- 
willing hands  of  Clement  XIV. 

The  ministers  of  state  who  controlled  the  destinies 
of  Spain  at  this  period  are  of  a  species  whose  like  cannot 
be  found  in  the  history  of  any  other  nation.  They 
begin  with  the  Italian  Alberoni  who  started  life  as 
a  farm  laborer;  then  became  an  ecclesiastic,  and 
ultimately  a  cardinal.  "  He  was  destined  to  trouble 
the  tranquillity  of  the  world  for  years,"  says  Schoell. 
According  to  Saint-Simon,  he  prevented  the  restitution 
of  Gibraltar  to  Spain  which  England  was  willing  to 


Charles  III  507 

grant;  he  was  banned  by  the  Pope;  and  was  subse- 
quently turned  out  of  office,  chiefly  by  the  intrigues 
of  two  Italian  ecclesiastics.  The  queen's  nurse,  old 
Laura  Piscatori,  also  figures  in  the  amazing  diplomacy 
of  those  days,  and  is  charged  with  an  ambition  to  be  as 
important  as  Cardinal  Alberoni,  who  came  from  her 
native  village.  The  next  prime  minister  was  the 
Biscayan  Grimaldi,  whose  physical  appearance  Saint- 
Simon  describes,  but  which  we  omit.  It  will  suffice  to 
say  that  "he  was  base  and  supple  when  it  suited  his 
convenience,  and  he  never  made  a  false  step  in  that 
direction."  Following  him,  came  Ripperda,  who  was 
born  in  the  Netherlands  and  educated  by  the  Jesuits 
at  Cologne,  but  became  a  Protestant  in  Holland,  and 
a  Catholic  in  Spain,  where  he  lasted  only  four  months, 
as  minister.  He  turned  Protestant  a  second  time,  on 
his  return  to  Holland,  and  subsequently  led  an  army 
of  Moors  against  Spain.  It  is  not  known  whether  he 
died  a  Christian  or  a  Mohammedan. 

Patino  and  de  la  Quadra  followed  each  other  in 
quick  succession,  one  good,  the  other  timid  and  weak. 
Ensenada,  though  skilful,  was  greedy  of  money,  and 
was  considered  the  head  of  the  French  faction  in  court. 
Carvajal  is  next  on  the  list,  and  displays  the  English 
propensities  which  were  natural  to  him,  for  he  belonged 
to  the  house  of  Lancaster.  Indeed,  his  policy  was 
entirely  pro-English  and  he  was  in  collusion  with 
Keene,  the  British  ambassador.  Wall,  an  Irishman, 
then  flits  across  the  scene,  and  has  with  him  two 
associates :  Losada  and  Squillace,  both  Italians.  When 
Wall  quarrelled  with  the  Pope  and  the  Inquisition, 
he  fell,  and  then  another  Grimaldi  came  to  the  fore; 
not  a  Biscayan,  like  his  namesake,  but  a  Genoese. 
Squillace,  apparently  from  the  Italian  branch  of  the 
Borgias,  was  next  in  order,  and  then  in  rapid  pro- 
cession came  the  Spaniards:  Roda,  de  Alva,  Aranda, 


508  The  Jesuits 

Roda,  Monino,  Campomanez,  either  as  prime  ministers 
or  prominent  in  the  government,  and  nearly  all  of  them 
under  French  influence.  Finally,  the  generalissimo  of 
the  army  and  the  most  popular  man  in  Spain  was  an 
Irishman,  Alexander  O'Reilly.  The  native  Spaniards 
counted  for  little;  even  the  king's  bodyguard  was  made 
up  of  Walloons. 

O'Reilly  was  probably  not  in  sympathy  with  the 
free-thinking  politicians  who  then  ruled  the  nation, 
for  the  reason  that  he  was  born  in  Ireland  and  had  all 
his  life  been  a  soldier.  Moreover,  he  was  hated  by 
the  Aranda  faction  and  retained  his  post,  at  the  head  of 
the  army,  only  because  the  king  thought  that  no  one 
could  shield  the  royal  life  as  well  as  O'Reilly.  He  was 
born  in  1735,  and  when  still  a  youth  was  sub-lieutenant 
in  the  Irish  Regiment  serving  in  Spain.  In  1757  he 
fought  under  his  countryman  de  Lacy  in  Austria,  and 
then  followed  the  fleur-de-lys  in  France.  He  so 
distinguished  himself,  that  the  Marechal  de  Broglie 
recommended  him  to  the  King  of  Spain.  There  he 
soon  became  brigadier  and  restored  the  ancient  prestige 
of  the  Spanish  army.  He  was  made  a  commandant 
at  Havana,  and  rebuilt  its  fortifications,  and  from  there 
went  to  Louisiana  to  secure  it  to  the  Spanish  crown. 
His  only  military  failure  was  in  Algiers,  but  that  was 
not  due  to  any  lack  of  wisdom  in  his  plans,  but  because 
his  fleet  did  not  arrive  at  the  time  appointed.  Even 
then,  there  was  no  one  so  highly  esteemed  as  O'Reilly, 
and  when  he  died  at  an  advanced  age  in  1794,  the 
people  all  declared  that  the  disasters  which  fell  on  the 
nation  would  have  been  averted  if  he  had  lived.  He  is 
credited  with  possessing  besides  his  military  ardor 
a  sweet  and  insinuating  disposition  which  may  explain 
how  he  could  easily  win  over  the  mob  which  so  terrified 
King  Charles  at  Madrid. 


Charles  III  509 

Meantime,  the  sinister  Choiseul  in  France  had  all  the 
ministers  of  Spain  in  his  grip,  and  he  then  determined 
to  capture  the  king.  He  first  made  him  a  present  of 
what  up  to  that  time,  had  been  the  special  pride  of 
France;  the  precedence  of  its  ambassadors  in  public 
functions  over  those  of  all  other  countries,  the  German 
Empire  excepted.  Charles  naturally  took  the  gift,  but 
apparently  failed  to  fathom  its  significance.  The  next 
move  was  to  get  rid  of  the  court  confessor;  and  his 
majesty  was  given  a  confidential  letter  from  Pombal 
of  Portugal  accusing  Father  Ravage  of  having  fo- 
mented the  insurrection  of  the  Indians  of  Paraguay, 
against  the  Spanish  troops  at  the  time  of  the  transfer 
of  that  territory.  The  plot  failed,  however,  for  Charles 
knew  Ravage  too  well,  and  then  something  more 
drastic  was  resorted  to.  Squillace  was  at  that  time 
in  power  and  under  him  occurred  the  historic  riot 
which,  in  the  course  of  time,  assumed  such  dimensions 
in  the  king's  imagination,  that  it  was  one  of  the  three 
or  four  things,  besides  his  "  royal  secret,"  which  he 
urged  on  the  Pope  as  a  reason  for  suppressing  the 
Society. 

The  story  of  the  riot  is  as  follows:  Squillace  was 
very  energetic  in  developing  the  material  resources 
of  the  kingdom,  but  always  with  an  eye  to  his  personal 
and  pecuniary  profit.  He  promoted  public  works; 
established  monopolies  even  in  food  stuffs;  loaded  the 
people  with  taxes;  and  being  intensely  anti-clerical, 
was  very  active  in  curtailing  ecclesiastical  privileges. 
The  people  and  clergy  meekly  submitted,  but  something 
happened  which  brought  Squillace's  career  to  an  end; 
though  it  had  much  more  serious  consequences  than 
that.  It  scarcely  seems  credible,  but  the  incident 
became  one  of  the  serious  events  of  the  time.  Though 
none  suspected  it,  the  whole  thing  had  been  deliberately 


510  The  Jesuits 

planned,  and  was  the  initial  step  in  the  plot  to  expel 
the  Jesuits  from  Spain.  Squillace  objected  or  pre- 
tended to  object  to  the  kind  of  dress  especially  affected 
by  the  people  of  Madrid:  a  slouched  sombrero  and 
an  all-enveloping  cloak;  and  he  gave  orders  to  change 
it.  Naturally,  this  exasperated  the  people,  for  although 
they  had  patiently  submitted  to  the  imposition  of 
taxes;  the  creation  of  oppressive  monopolies;  the  cur- 
tailment of  ancient  rights  and  privileges,  etc.,  the 
audacity  of  a  foreigner  interfering  with  the  cut  of 
their  garments  brought  about  a  popular  upheaval. 
On  March  26,  1766,  the  mob  stormed  the  residence 
of  Squillace,  and  he  ignominiously  took  to  flight. 
All  night  long,  the  excited  crowds  swarmed  through 
the  streets  shouting,  "  Down  with  Squillace."  On 
the  following  morning,  they  surrounded  the  palace 
of  the  king  himself  and  he,  in  alarm,  called  for  O'Reilly 
to  quell  the  disturbance.  When  it  was  represented  to 
his  majesty  that  it  might  entail  bloodshed,  he  depre- 
cated that  and  hurriedly  left  Madrid.  ^Had  he  shown 
himself  to  the  people,  they  would  have  done  him  no 
harm,  for  reverence  for  royalty  was  still  deep  in  the 
popular  heart,  and  the  age  of  royal  assassinations  had 
not  yet  come.  But  the  king  was  not  a  hero,  and  he 
thrust  his  subaltern  into  what  he  fancied  was  a  post 
of  danger.  Thereupon,  unarmed  and  unattended, 
O'Reilly  faced  the  excited  mob. 

Delighted  by  his  trust  in  them,  they  greeted  him 
with  cheers,  but  demanded  a  redress  of  their  grievances. 
Unfortunately,  while  he  was  keeping  them  in  good 
humor,  the  Walloons,  who  were  guarding  another 
gate  of  the  palace,  got  into  an  altercation  with  some 
of  the  rioters.  Hot  words  were  exchanged,  shots  were 
fired  and  several  persons  were  killed.  The  whole 
scene  changed  instantly,  and  the  capital  would  have 
been  drenched  in  blood,  and  perhaps  Charles  would 


Charles  III  511 

have  been  dethroned,  had  not  a  number  of  Jesuits 
headed  by  the  saintly  Pignatelli,  hurried  through  the 
crowd  and  held  the  rioters  in  check.  Finally,  when  a 
placard  was  affixed  to  the  palace  walls,  granting  all 
their  demands,  the  mob  dispersed,  cheering  for  the 
Jesuits  —  a  fatal  cry  for  those  whom  it  was  meant  to 
honor.  They  were  accused  of  provoking  the  riot ;  and, 
from  that  moment,  the  king's  hatred  for  the  Society 
began.  It  was  made  more  acute  by  the  consciousness  of 
his  own  cowardice.  Thus,  a  farce  was  to  introduce  a 
tragedy.  Ten  years  afterwards,  the  Duke  of  Alva,  a 
descendant  of  the  old  tyrant  of  the  Netherlands, 
confessed  that  it  was  he,  who  had  planned  the  som- 
brero and  cloak  riot  to  discredit  the  Jesuits  (de  Murr, 
"  Journal,"  ix,  222). 

Towards  the  end  of  January  1767,  another  episode 
in  this  curious  history  presents  itself.  Like  the 
affair  of  the  riot  it  seems  to  be  taken  from  a  novel, 
but  unfortunately  it  is  not  so.  Its  setting  is  the  princi- 
pal Jesuit  residence  at  Madrid.  The  provincial  and 
the  community  are  at  dinner,  when  a  lay-brother 
enters  with  a  package  of  letters,  which  he  places 
before  the  provincial.  It  is  not  the  usual  way  of 
delivering  such  communications  in  the  Society,  but  the 
story  is  told  by  de  Ravignan  in  "  Clement  XIII  et 
Clement  XIV  "  (I,  186),  and  he  is  quoting  from  Father 
Casseda,  who  is  described  as  "a  Jesuit  Father  of 
eminence  and  worthy  of  belief."  The  package  was 
handed  back  to  the  brother,  along  with  the  keys  of 
the  provincial's  room,  where  it  was  left.  Immediately 
afterwards,  an  officer  of  the  court  arrived,  searched  the 
room  and  extracted  one  of  the  letters,  said  to  be  from 
Father  Ricci,  the  General  of  the  Jesuits,  who  among 
other  things,  declared  that  the  king  was  an  illegitimate 
son  and  was  to  be  superseded  by  his  brother,  Don 
Luis.  That  such  a  letter  was  really  written,  is  vouched 


512  The  Jesuits 

for  by  several  historians:  Coxe,  Ranke,  Schoell, 
Adam,  Sismondi,  Darras,  and  others;  and  it  is  generally 
admitted  to  have  been  the  work  of  Choiseul  in  France 
though  he  covered  up  his  tracks  so  adroitly  that  no 
documentary  evidence  can  be  adduced  to  prove  it 
against  him.  His  intermediary  was  a  certain  Abbe 
Beliardy  an  attache  of  the  French  embassy  in  Madrid. 

According  to  Carayon  (XV  Opp.,  16-23)  and  Boero 
("  Pignatelli  "  Appendix)  there  is  a  second  scene  in 
this  melodrama.  Two  Fathers  are  leaving  Madrid  for 
Rome.  A  sealed  package  is  entrusted  •  to  them,  pur- 
porting to  be  from  the  papal  ambassador  in  Spain.  On 
the  road  they  are  held  up  and  searched;  the  package 
is  opened,  and  a  letter  is  found  in  it  reflecting  on  the 
king's  legitimacy.  Precisely  at  the  same  moment, 
the  trick  of  the  refectory  letter  was  being  played  in 
the  Jesuit  residence  at  Madrid,  and  thus  a  connection 
was  established.  With  this  scrap  of  paper  and  the 
"  cloak  and  sombrero  riot "  at  their  disposal,  the 
plotters  concluded  that  they  had  ample  material  to 
carry  out  their  scheme,  and  the  next  chapter  shows 
Aranda,  the  prime  minister,  Roda,  Monino  and 
Campomanez  meeting  frequently  in  an  old  abandoned 
mansion  in  the  country.  With  them  was  a  number 
of  boys,  probably  pages  about  the  court,  who  were 
employed  in  copying  a  pile  of  documents  whose  import 
they  were  too  unsophisticated  to  understand.  Older 
amanuenses  might  have  betrayed  the  secret. 

The  chain  of  evidence  was  finally  completed,  and 
these  grave  statesmen  then  presented  themselves 
before  his  majesty  and,  with  evidence  in  hand,  proved 
to  him  the  undoubted  iniquity  of  the  religious  order 
which  up  to  that  moment  he  had  so  implicitly  trusted. 
He  fell  into  the  trap,  and  a  series  of  cabinet  meetings 
ensued  in  which  information  previously  gathered  or 
invented  about  every  Jesuit  in  France  was  discussed. 


Charles  III  513 

The  result  was  that  on  January  29,  1767  a  proposal 
was  drawn  up  by  Campomanez  and  laid  before  his 
majesty  to  expel  the  Society  from  Spain,  and  advising 
him,  first,  to  impose  absolute  silence  on  all  his  subjects 
with  regard  to  the  affair,  to  such  an  extent  that  no  one 
should  say  or  publish  anything  either  for  or  against 
the  measure,  without  a  special  permission  of  the 
government;  secondly,  to  withhold  all  knowledge  of 
the  affair,  even  from  the  controller  of  the  press  and 
his  subordinates;  and  finally  to  arrange  that  whatever 
action  was  taken,  should  proceed  directly  from  the 
president  and  ministers  of  the  extraordinary  council. 

The  advice  was  assented  to  by  the  king,  and  a 
decree  was  issued  in  virtue  of  which  silence  was  passed 
on  6,000  Spanish  subjects  who  not  only  had  no  trial 
but  who  were  absolutely  unaware  that  there  was  any 
charge  against  them.  They  had  been  as  a  body 
irreproachable  for  two  hundred  years,  had  reflected 
more  glory,  and  won  more  territory  for  Spain  than 
had  ever  been  gained  by  its  armies.  They  were  men 
of  holy  lives,  often  of  great  distinction  in  every  branch 
of  learning;  some  of  them  belonged  to  the  noblest 
families  of  the  realm ;  and  yet  they  were  all  to  be  thrown 
out  in  the  world  at  a  moment's  notice,  though  not 
a  judge  on  the  bench,  not  a  priest  or  a  bishop,  not  even 
the  Pope  had  been  apprised  of  the  cause  of  it,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  was  forbidden  even  to  speak  of  the 
act.  A  more  outrageous  abuse  of  authority  could 
not  possibly  be  conceived. 

It  was  arranged  that  on  the  coming  second  of  April, 
1767,  a  statement  should  be  made  throughout  Europe 
by  which  the  world  would  be  informed:  first,  that 
for  the  necessary  preservation  of  peace,  and  for  other 
equally  just  and  necessary  reasons  (though  the  world 
is  not  to  be  told  what  they  are),  the  Jesuits  are  expelled 
from  the  king's  dominions,  and  all  their  goods  confis- 

33 


514  The  Jesuits 

cated;  secondly,  that  the  motive  will  forever  remain 
buried  in  the  royal  heart;  thirdly,  that  all  the  other 
religious  congregations  in  Spain  are  most  estimable  and 
are  not  to  be  molested.  The  decree  was  signed  by 
Charles  and  countersigned  by  Aranda  and  then  sent 
out.  The  ambassador  at  Rome  was  ordered  to  hand 
it  to  the  Pope  and  withdraw  without  saying  a  word. 
The  despatches  to  the  civil  and  military  authorities 
in  both  worlds  were  enclosed  in  double  envelopes  and 
sealed  with  three  seals.  On  the  inner  cover  appeared 
the  ominous  words,  as  from  a  pirate  addressing  his 
crew:  "  Under  pain  of  death  this  package  is  not  to  be 
opened  until  April  2,  1767,  at  the  setting  sun."  The 
letter  read  as  follows:  "  I  invest  you  with  all  my 
authority  and  all  my  royal  power  to  descend  immedi- 
ately with  arms  on  the  Jesuit  establishments  in  your 
district;  to  seize  the  occupants  and  to  lead  them  as 
prisoners  to  the  port  indicated  inside  of  24  hours.  At 
the  moment  of  seizure,  you  will  seal  the  archives  of  the 
house  and  all  private  papers  and  permit  no  one  to  carry 
anything  but  his  prayer-book  and  the  linen  strictly 
necessary  for  the  voyage.  If  after  your  embarcation 
there  is  left  behind  a  single  Jesuit  either  sick  or  dying 
in  your  department,  you  shall  be  punished  with  death." 

"I,  the  King." 

The  motive  that  prompted  Charles  to  keep  the  secret 
of  this  amazing  proceeding  "  shut  up  in  his  royal 
heart  "  has  been  usually  ascribed  to  his  intense  resent- 
ment at  the  suspicion  cast  on  his  legitimacy,  and  his 
fear  that  even  the  mention  of  it  would  lead  people  to 
conclude  that  there  was  some  foundation  for  the  charge. 
Davila,  quoted  by  Pollen  in  "  The  Month  "  (August, 
1902),  finds  another  explanation. 

"  Charles  III,"  he  says,  "  had  become  an  extravagant 
regalist,  and  was  convinced  by  his  Voltairean  ministers, 


Charles  III  515 

mostly  by  Tanucci,  whom  he  had  left  in  charge  of  his 
son  at  Naples,  that  in  all  things  the  Church  should  be 
subject  to  the  State.  It  was  on  that  account  that  he 
kept  the  reasons  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits 
1  buried  in  his  royal  heart.'  The  sole  cause  of  this  act 
was  his  change  of  policy;  a  true  reason  of  state  such 
as,  on  some  occasions,  covers  grave  acts  of  injustice  — 
for  it  must  be  always  a  grave  injustice  to  charge  a 
religious  society  with  having  conspired  against  the 
fundamental  institutions  of  a  country,  and  yet  not  be 
able  to  point  out  in  any  way  the  object  and  plan  of  so 
dark  a  conspiracy.  If  such  be  the  case,"  continues 
Davila,  "it  is  easy  to  understand  why  his  majesty 
could  not  reveal  this  '  secret  of  his  royal  heart '  even 
to  the  Pope,  or  perhaps  least  of  all  to  him,  for  it  would 
be  a  painful  avowal  that  his  Catholic  Majesty  was  a 
yoke-fellow  with  the  Voltaireans  of  Europe  whose 
avowed  purpose  was  to  destroy  the  Church." 

Clement  XIII  was  overwhelmed  with  grief  when  he 
read  the  king's  decree  and  wrote  to  him  as  follows: 
"  Of  all  the  blows  I  have  received  during  the  nine 
unhappy  years  of  my  pontificate  the  worst  is  that  of 
which  your  majesty  informs  me  in  your  last  letter, 
telling  me  of  your  resolution  to  expel  from  all  your 
vast  dominions  the  religious  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
So  you  too,  do  this,  my  son,  Tu  quoque  fili  mi.  Our 
beloved  Charles  III,  the  Catholic  King,  is  the  one  who 
is  to  fill  up  the  chalice  of  our  woe  and  to  bring  down  to 
the  grave  our  old  age  bathed  in  tears  and  overwhelmed 
with  grief.  The  very  religious,  the  very  pious  King  of 
Spain,  Charles  III,  is  going  to  give  the  support  of  his 
arm,  that  powerful  arm  which  God  has  given  him  to 
increase  his  own  honor  and  that  of  God  and  the  Church, 
to  destroy  to  its  very  foundation,  an  order  so  useful 
and  so  dear  to  the  Church,  an  order  which  owes  its 
origin  and  its  splendor  to  those  saintly  heroes  whom 


516  The  Jesuits 

God  has  deigned  to  choose  in  the  Spanish  nation  to 
extend  His  greater  glory  throughout  the  world.  It  is 
you  who  are  going  to  deprive  your  kingdom  and  your 
people  of  all  the  help  and  all  the  spiritual  blessings 
which  the  religious  of  that  Society  have  heaped  on  it 
by  their  preaching,  their  missions,  their  catechisms, 
their  spiritual  exercises,  the  administration  of  the 
sacraments,  the  education  of  youth  in  letters  and  piety, 
the  worship  of  God,  and  the  honor  of  the  Church. 

"Ah!  Sire!  our  soul  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  that 
awful  ruin.  And  what  cuts  us  to  the  heart  still 
deeper  perhaps  is  to  see  the  wise,  just  King  Charles  III, 
that  prince  whose  conscience  was  so  delicate  and  whose 
intentions  were  so  right ;  who  lest  he  might  compromise 
his  eternal  salvation,  would  never  consent  to  have  the 
meanest  of  his  subjects  suffer  the  slightest  injury  in 
their  private  concerns  without  having  their  case 
previously  and  legitimately  tried  and  every  condition 
of  the  law  complied  with,  is  now  vowing  to  total  destruc- 
tion, by  depriving  of  its  honor,  its  country,  its  property, 
which  was  legitimately  acquired,  and  its  establish- 
ments, which  were  rightfully  owned,  that  whole  body 
of  religious  who  were  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God 
and  the  neighbor,  and  all  that  without  examining  them, 
without  hearing  them,  without  permitting  them  to 
defend  themselves.  Sire!  this  act  of  yours  is  grave; 
and  if  perchance  it  is  not  sufficiently  justified  in  the 
eyes  of  Almighty  God,  the  Sovereign  Judge  of  all 
creatures,  the  approval  of  those  who  have  advised  you 
in  this  matter  will  avail  nothing,  nor  will  the  plaudits 
of  those  whose  principles  have  prompted  you  to  do 
this.  As  for  us,  plunged  as  we  are  in  inexpressible 
grief,  we  avow  to  your  majesty  that  we  fear  and  tremble 
for  the  salvation  of  your  soul  which  is  so  dear  to  us. 

'  Your  Majesty  tells  us  that  you  have  been  com- 
pelled to  adopt  these  measures  by  the  duty  of  main- 


Charles  III  517 

taining  peace  in  your  states, —  implying  we  presume 
that  this  trouble  has  been  provoked  by  some  individual 
belonging  to  the  Society  of  Jesus.  But,  even  if  it 
were  true,  Sire,  why  not  punish  the  guilty  without 
making  the  innocent  suffer?  The  body,  the  Institute, 
the  spirit  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  we  declare  it  in 
the  presence  of  God  and  of  man,  is  absolutely  innocent 
of  all  crime,  and  not  only  innocent,  but  pious,  useful, 
holy  in  its  object,  in  its  laws,  in  its  maxims.  It  matters 
not  that  its  enemies  have  endeavored  to  prove  the 
contrary;  all  calm  and  impartial  minds  will  abhor 
such  accusers  as  discredited  liars  who  contradict 
themselves  in  whatever  they  say.  You  may  tell 
me  that  it  is  now  an  accomplished  fact;  that  the 
royal  edict  has  been  promulgated  and  you  may  ask 
what  will  the  world  say  if  I  retract?  Should  you  not 
rather  ask,  Sire,  what  will  God  say?  Let  me  tell  you 
what  the  world  will  say.  It  will  say  what  it  said  of 
Assuerus  when  he  revoked  his  edict  to  butcher  the 
Hebrews.  It  accorded  him  the  eternal  praise  of  being 
a  just  king  who  knew  how  to  conquer  himself.  Ah! 
Sire,  what  a  chance  to  win  a  like  glory  for  yourself. 
We  offer  to  your  majesty  the  supplications  not  only 
of  your  royal  spouse,  who  from  heaven  recalls  to  you 
the  love  she  had  for  the  Society  of  Jesus,  but  much 
more  so,  to  the  Sacred  Spouse  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Holy  Church,  which  cannot  contemplate,  without 
weeping,  the  total  and  imminent  extinction  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  which  until  this  very  hour  has  rendered 
to  her  such  great  assistance  and  such  signal  services. 
Permit,  then,  that  this  matter  be  regularly  discussed; 
let  justice  and  truth  be  allowed  to  act,  and  they  will 
scatter  the  clouds  that  have  arisen  from  prejudice  and 
suspicion.  Listen  to  the  counsels  of  those  who  are 
doctors  in  Israel;  the  bishops,  the  religious,  in  a  cause 
that  involves  the  interests  of  the  State,  the  honor  of 


518  The  Jesuits 

the  Church,  the  salvation  of  souls,  your  own  conscience 
and  your  eternal  salvation'." 

How  Charles  could  resist  this  appeal,  which  is  among 
the  most  admirable  and  eloquent  state  papers  ever 
given  to  the  world,  is  incomprehensible.  But  he  did. 
He  merely  replied  to  the  Pope :  "To  spare  the  world 
a  great  scandal,  I  shall  ever  preserve  as  a  secret  in  my 
heart  the  abominable  plot  which  has  necessitated  this 
rigor.  Your  Holiness  ought  to  believe  my  word,  the 
safety  of  my  life  exacts  of  me  a  profound  silence." 

Not  satisfied  with  writing  to  the  king  himself,  the 
Pope  also  pleaded  with  the  greatest  prelate  in  the 
realm,  the  Archbishop  of  Tarragona  as  follows :  ' '  What 
has  come  over  you?  How  does  it  happen  that,  in  an 
instant,  the  Society  of  Jesus  has  departed  so  far  from 
the  rules  of  its  pious  Institute,  that  our  dear  Son 
in  Jesus  Christ,  Charles  III,  the  Catholic  King,  can 
consider  himself  authorized  to  expel  from  his  realm 
all  the  Regular  Clerks  of  the  Society?  This  is  a 
mystery  we  cannot  explain;  only  a  year  ago,  the 
numberless  letters  addressed  to  us  by  the  Spanish 
episcopacy  afforded  us  some  consolation  in  the  deep 
grief  that  affected  us  when  these  same  religious  were 
expelled  from  France.  Those  letters  informed  us  that 
the  Fathers  in  your  country  gave  an  example  of  every 
virtue,  and  that  the  bishops  and  their  dioceses  received 
the  most  powerful  support  by  their  pious  and  useful 
labours.  And  now,  behold,  in  an  instant,  there  come 
dreadful  charges  against  them  and  we  are  asked  to 
believe  that  all  these  Fathers  or  almost  all  have  com- 
mitted some  terrible  crime;  nay  the  king  himself, 
so  well  known  for  his  equity,  is  so  convinced  of  it, 
that  he  feels  obliged  to  treat  the  members  of  that 
Institute  with  a  rigor  hitherto  unheard  of." 

Addressing  himself  personally  to  the  king's  confessor 
he  says:  "  We  write  to  you,  my  dear  son,  that  you 


Charles  III  519 

may  lay  this  before  the  prince  who  has  taken  you 
for  his  guide,  and  we  charge  you  to  speak  in  our  name 
and  in  virtue  of  the  obligations  which  the  duty  of  your 
office  imposes,  and  the  authority  it  bestows  on  you. 
As  for  us,  we  do  not  refuse  to  employ  measures  of  the 
severest  and  most  rigorous  justice  against  those 
members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  who  have  incurred 
the  just  anger  of  the  king,  and  to  employ  all  our  power 
to  destroy  and  to  root  out  the  thorns  and  briars  which 
may  have  sprung  up  in  a  soil  hitherto  so  pure  and  fertile. 
As  for  you,  it  is  part  of  your  sacred  ministry  to  consider 
with  fear  and  trembling  as  you  kneel  at  the  feet  of  the 
image  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  compel  the  king  to  consider 
the  incalculable  ruin  that  religion  will  suffer,  especially 
in  pagan  lands,  if  the  numberless  Christian  missions 
which  are  now  so  flourishing,  are  abandoned  and  left 
without  pastors."  Evidently  the  confessor  could  do 
nothing  with  his  royal  penitent. 

This  mad  act  of  Charles  did  not  please  some  of  his 
friends  in  France.  Thus,  on  May  4,  1767,  D'Alembert 
wrote  to  Voltaire:  "  What  do  you  think  of  the  edict 
of  Charles  III,  who  expels  the  Jesuits  so  abruptly? 
Persuaded  as  I  am  that  he  had  good  and  sufficient 
reason,  do  you  not  think  he  ought  to  have  made  them 
known  and  not  to  'shut  them  up  in  his  royal  heart?' 
Do  you  not  think  he  ought  to  have  allowed  the  Jesuits 
to  justify  themselves,  especially  as  every  one  is  sure 
they  could  not?  Do  you  not  think,  moreover,  that  it 
would  be  very  unjust  to  make  them  all  die  of  starvation, 
if  a  single  lay-brother  who  perhaps  is  cutting  cabbage 
in  the  kitchen  should  say  a  word,  one  way  or  the  other 
in  their  favor?  And  what  do  you  think  of  the  com- 
pliments which  the  King  of  Spain  addresses  to  the 
other  monks  and  priests,  and  cures  and  sacristants  of 
his  realm,  who  are  not  in  my  opinion  less  dangerous 
than  the  Jesuits,  except  that  they  are  more  stupid  and 


520  The  Jesuits 

vile?  Finally,  does  it  not  seem  to  you  that  he  could 
act  with  more  common  sense  in  carrying  out  what 
after  all,  is  a  reasonable  measure?" 

In  spite  of  the  royal  order  enjoining  silence  on  his 
subjects  high  and  low,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  feeling 
manifested  at  the  outrage.  Roda,  an  agent  of  the 
ministry  at  Madrid,  tried  to  conceal  it  and  wrote  to 
the  Spanish  Embassy  at  Rome  on  April  15,  1767: 
'  There  is  not  much  agitation  here.  Some  rich 
people,  some  women  and  other  simpletons  are  very 
much  excited  about  it,  and  are  writing  a  great  deal 
of  their  affection  for  the  Jesuits,  but  that  is  due  to 
their  blindness.  You  would  be  astounded  to  find  how 
numerous  they  are.  But  papers  discovered  in  the 
archives  and  libraries,  garrets  and  cellars,  furnish 
sufficient  matter  to  justify  the  act.  They  reveal  more 
than  people  here  suspect."  And  yet  not  one  of  these 
incriminating  documents  "  found  in  archives  and 
libraries  and  garrets  and  cellars  "  was  ever  produced. 

Among  "  the  simpletons  "  who  denounced  the  act 
was  the  Bishop  of  Cuenca,  Isidore  de  Carvajal,  who 
told  the  king  to  his  face,  what  he  thought  of  the  whole 
business.  The  Archbishop  of  Tarragona  did  the  same, 
but  they  both  incurred  the  royal  displeasure.  The 
Bishop  of  Terruel  published  a  pamphlet  "  The  Truth 
unveiled  to  the  King  our  Master  "  and  he  was  immedi- 
ately confined  in  a  Franciscan  convent,  while  his  Vicar- 
general  and  chancellor  were  thrown  into  jail.  The 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  Cardinal  de  Cordova,  wrote  to 
the  Pope  and  the  contents  of  his  letters  were  known 
in  Spain,  for  Roda,  the  individual  above  referred  to, 
hastened  to  tell  the  Spanish  ambassador  on  May  12, 
1767:  "In  spite  of  all  their  tricks,  the  Archbishop  of 
Toledo  and  his  vicar-general  have  written  a  thousand 
stupid  things  to  the  Pope  about  this  affair.  We 
would  not  be  a  bit  surprised  if  the  Bishop  of  Cuenca, 


Charles  III  521 

Coria,  Cuidad  Rodrigo,  Terruel  and  some  others  have 
done  the  same  thing,  but  we  are  not  sure."  A  year 
and  a  half  after  the  blow  was  struck  something  happened 
which  again  threw  the  timid  Charles  into  a  panic 
about  his  royal  life.  According  to  custom,  he  pre- 
sented himself  on  November  4,  1768,  on  the  balcony 
of  his  palace  to  receive  the  homage  of  his  people, 
and  to  grant  them  some  public  favor  out  of  his  munifi- 
cence. To  the  stupefaction  of  both  king  and  court, 
one  universal  cry  arose  from  the  vast  multitude. 
"  Send  us  back  the  Jesuits!  "  Charles  withdrew  in 
alarm  and  immediately  investigations  began  with  the 
result  that  he  drove  out  of  the  kingdom  the  Cardinal 
Archbishop  of  Toledo  and  his  vicar  on  the  charge 
that  they  had  prompted  the  demand  of  the  people 
(Coxe,  "  Spain  under  the  Bourbons,"  v,  25). 

With  regard  to  the  supposed  letter  of  Father  Ricci 
which  brought  on  this  disaster,  it  may  be  of  use  to 
refer  here  to  what  was  told  thirty  years  after  these 
events,  in  a  work  called  "Du  retablissement  des  Jesuites 
et  de  1'  education  publique "  (Emmerick,  Lambert, 
Rouen).  The  author  says:  "It  is  proper  to  add  an 
interesting  item  to  the  story  of  the  means  employed 
to  destroy  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  the  mind  of  Charles 
III.  Besides  the  pretended  letter  of  Father  Ricci, 
there  were  other  suppositions  documents,  and  among 
these  lying  papers  was  a  letter  in  the  handwriting  of 
an  Italian  Jesuit  which  had  been  perfectly  imitated. 
It  contained  outrageous  denunciations  of  the  Spanish 
government.  When  Clement  XIII  insisted  on  having 
some  proof  to  throw  light  on  the  allegations,  this  letter 
was  sent  to  him.  Among  those  who  were  commissioned 
to  examine  it,  was  a  simple  prelate,  who  afterwards 
became  Pius  VI.  Glancing  at  the  missive  he  re- 
marked that  the  paper  was  of  Spanish  manufacture, 
and  he  wondered  why  an  Italian  should  send  to  Spain 


522  The  Jesuits 

for  writing  material.  Looking  at  it  closer  and  holding 
it  up  to  the  light  he  saw  that  the  water-mark  gave 
not  only  the  name  of  a  Spanish  paper-factory,  but  also 
the  date  on  which  it  was  turned  out.  Now  it  happened 
that  this  date  was  two  years  after  the  letter  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  written.  The  imposture  was  mani- 
fest, but  the  blow  had  already  been  struck.  Charles  III 
was  living  at  the  time,  yet  he  was  not  man  enough 
to  acknowledge  and  repair  the  wrong  he  had  done." 
(Cretineau  -Joly,  v,  241). 

On  the  day  appointed  by  the  king,  April  2,  1767, 
every  ship  selected  to  carry  out  the  edict  was  in  the 
harbor  assigned  to  it,  in  every  part  of  the  Spanish 
world,  where  there  happened  to  be  a  Jesuit  establish- 
ment. The  night  before  at  sundown  the  captain  had 
opened  the  letter  which  had  the  threat  on  its  envelope : 
"  Your  life  is  forfeited  if  you  anticipate  the  day  or  the 
hour."  He  obeyed  his  instructions;  and  early  in 
the  morning  the  Fathers  in  the  college  of  Salamanca, 
Saragossa,  Madrid,  Barcelona  and  all  the  great  cities, 
as  well  as  in  every  town  where  the  Jesuits  had  any 
kind  of  an  establishment,  heard  the  tramp  of  armed 
men  entering  the  halls.  The  members  of  the  house- 
hold were  ejected  from  their  rooms,  seals  were  put 
on  the  doors,  and  the  community  marched  down  like 
convicts  going  to  jail.  Old  men  and  young,  the  sick 
and  even  the  dying,  all  had  to  go  to  the  nearest  point 
of  embarcation.  Not  a  syllable  were  they  allowed  to 
utter  as  they  tramped  along,  and  no  one  could  speak 
in  their  defence  without  being  guilty  of  high  treason. 
When  they  reached  the  ships,  they  were  herded  on 
board  like  cattle  and  despatched  to  Civita  Vecchia, 
to  be  flung  on  the  shores  of  the  States  of  the  Pope, 
whose  permission  had  not  even  been  asked;  nor  had 
any  notice  been  given  him.  It  was  a  magnificent 
stroke  of  organized  work,  and  incidentally  very 


Charles  III  523 

profitable  to  the  government,  for  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  it  came  into  possession  of  158  Jesuit  houses, 
all  of  considerable  value  as  real  estate  and  some  of 
them  magnificent  in  their  equipment.  How  much  was 
added  to  the  Spanish  treasury  on  that  eventful 
morning,  we  have  no  means  of  computing. 

There  was  one  difficulty  in  the  proceedings,  however. 
The  supply  of  ships  was  insufficient,  for  2,643  men  nadi 
to  be  simultaneously  cared  for;  but  their  comfort 
did  not  interfere  with  the  progress  of  the  movement. 
'  They  were  piled  on  top  of  each  other  on  the  decks  or 
in  the  fetid  holds,"  says  Sismondi,"  as  if  they  were  crimi- 
nals." It  was  worse  than  the  African  slave-trade. 
Saint-Priest  thinks  "  it  was  a  trifle  barbarous,  but  the 
precipitation  was  unavoidable."  It  was  indeed  a  trifle 
barbarous  and  the  precipitation  was  not  unavoidable. 

In  rounding  up  the  victims,  the  king  and  the  ministers 
were  naturally  anxious  about  the  effect  it  might  have 
upon  many  of  the  best  Spanish  families  who  had 
sons  in  the  Order;  notably  the  two  Pignatellis,  who 
were  of  princely  lineage.  Inducements  were  held  out 
to  both  of  them  to  abandon  the  Society,  but  the  offer 
was  spurned  with  contempt.  Indeed  very  few  even 
of  the  novices  failed  in  this  sore  trial.  As  for  the 
Pignatellis  they  were  the  angels  of  this  exodus,  par- 
ticularly Joseph,  whose  exalted  virtue  is  now  being 
considered  in  Rome  in  view  of  his  beatification.  He 
was  at  Saragossa  when  the  royal  order  arrived,  and 
though  suffering  with  hemorrhages,  he  started  out 
afoot  on  the  weary  journey  to  Tarragona,  and  from 
there  to  Salu,  nine  miles  further  on,  where  nineteen 
brigantines  were  assembled  to  receive  this  first  batch 
of  600  outcasts.  He  was  so  feeble  that  he  had  to  be 
carried  on  board  the  ship. 

From  there,  they  set  sail  for  Civita  Vecchia,  where 
they  arrived  on  May  7,  but  were  not  allowed  to  land. 


524  The  Jesuits 

Even  the  generally  fair  Schoell  describes  the  Pope's 
action  in  this  instance  as  "  characterized  by  the  greatest 
inhumanity."  On  the  contrary,  it  would  have  been  an 
act  of  the  greatest  inhumanity  to  receive  them.  There 
were  some  thousands  of  Portuguese  Jesuits  there  already, 
who  had  been  flung  on  the  shore  unannounced,  and  in 
that  impoverished  region  there  was  no  means  of 
providing  them  with  food  or  medicine  or  even  clothes 
and  beds.  To  have  admitted  this  new  detachment  of 
600  who  were  merely  the  forerunners  of  4,500  more, 
and  who,  in  turn  were  to  be  followed  by  all  the  Jesuits 
whom  Tanucci  would  drive  out  of  the  Neapolitan 
Kingdom,  and  those  whom  Choiseul  would  hasten  to 
gather  up  in  France,  the  result  would  have  been  that 
ten  or  fifteen  thousand  Jesuits  without  money  or 
food  or  clothing,  some  of  them  old  and  decrepit  and  ill, 
would  have  to  be  cared  for  and  the  native  population 
in  consequence  would  be  subjected  to  a  burden  that 
would  have  been  impossible  to  bear.  It  was  "  in- 
human "  no  doubt,  but  the  inhumanity  must  be 
ascribed  to  Charles  III  who  had  plundered  these 
victims,  and  not  to  Clement  XIII  who  would  have 
died  for  them.  His  first  duty  was  to  his  own  people 
and  his  next  was  to  proclaim  to  the  world  and  to  all 
posterity,  the  grossness  of  the  insult  as  well  as  the 
injustice  inflicted  on  the  Vicar  of  Christ  by  the  Most 
Catholic  King,  Charles  III.  Nor  were  the  "  unhappy 
wretches,"  as  Bohmer-Monod  call  them,  "  received  by 
cannon  shot,  at  the  demand  of  their  own  General, 
who  had  trouble  enough  with  the  Portuguese  already 
on  his  hands;"  (p.  274)  nor  did  the  Jesuits,  as  Saint- 
Priest  adds :  "  vent  their  rage  against  Ricci  and  blame 
his  harsh  administration,  as  the  cause  of  all  their 
woes."  Ricci  was  begging  for  bread  to  feed  his  Portu- 
guese sons  at  that  time,  and  he  certainly  would  not 
have  received  those  from  Spain  with  a  cannon  shot; 


Charles  III  525 

nor  would  the  Jesuits  have  vented  their  rage  against 
him  and  blamed  his  harsh  administration,  especially 
as  his  administration  was  the  very  reverse  of  harsh; 
and,  finally,  Jesuits  were  not  accustomed  to  vent  their 
rage  against  their  superior. 

Sismondi  (Hist,  des  Francais,  xxix,  372)  says  that 
"many  of  them  perished  on  board  ship,  and  Schoell 
describes  them  as  lying  on  top  of  one  another  on  deck 
for  weeks,  under  the  scorching  rays  of  the  sun  or  down 
in  the  fetid  hold."  The  filthy  ships  finally  turned  their 
prows  towards  Corsica  where  arrangements  had  been 
made  for  them  to  discharge  their  human  cargo.  It 
took  four  days  to  reach  that  island,  but  Paoli  was 
just  then  fighting  for  the  independence  of  his  country, 
and  French  ships  which  were  aiding  Genoa  occupied 
the  principal  ports.  At  first  the  exiles  remained  in 
their  ships,  but,  later,  they  were  allowed  to  go  ashore 
during  the  day.  Meantime,  a  vessel  had  been  de- 
spatched to  Spain  for  instructions  and  when  it  returned 
on  July  8,  the  "  criminals  "  were  ordered  to  go  to 
Ajaccio,  Algoila  or  Calvi.  They  reached  Ajaccio  on 
July  24,  and  as  they  were  then  in  a  state  of  semi- 
starvation,  Father  Pignatelli  went  straight  to  the 
insurgent  camp,  though  at  every  step  he  risked  being 
shot  or  seized  and  hanged,  but  he  did  not  care,  he 
would  appeal  to  Paoli's  humanity.  He  was  well 
received,  help  was  sent  to  the  sufferers,  and  they  were 
given  liberty  to  go  where  they  chose  on  the  island. 

They  remained  there  a  month  and  were  then  sent 
to  the  town  of  Saint-Boniface,  where  they  bivouacked 
or  lived  in  sheds  until  the  8th  of  December,  when  they 
were  ordered  to  Genoa.  This  time  the  number  of 
brigantines  in  which  they  embarked  had  been  reduced 
from  thirteen  to  five,  though  the  number  of  the  victims 
had  considerably  increased;  but  that  mattered  little; 
they  finally  reached  the  mainland  but  were  not  per- 


526  The  Jesuits 

mitted  to  go  ashore.  Meantime,  other  Jesuits  had 
arrived  and  they  now  numbered  2,000  or  2,400.  After 
a  short  delay  in  the  harbor,  they  made  their  way 
separately  or  in  groups  to  different  cities  in  the  Papal 
States,  chiefly  to  Bologna  and  Ferrara. 

Their  ejection  from  the  Two  Sicilies  was  a  foregone 
conclusion,  for  it  was  ruled  by  the  terrible  Bernardo 
Tanucci,  whom  Charles  III  on  his  accession  to  the 
throne  of  Spain  had  left  as  regent  during  the  minority 
of  Ferdinand  IV.  Tanucci  was  a  lawyer  who  began 
his  career  in  a  most  illegal  fashion  by  exciting  riots  in 
Pisa  against  his  rival  Grandi.  They  had  quarrelled 
about  the  discovery  of  the  Pandects  of  Justinian.  He 
next  drew  the  attention  of  Charles  by  assailing  the 
right  of  asylum  for  criminals,  which  he  maintained  was 
in  contravention  of  all  law  human  and  divine.  "  He 
attacked  the  prerogatives  of  the  Court  of  Rome  and 
of  the  nobles  of  Naples,  with  more  fury  than  prudence," 
says  de  Angelis  (Biographic  universelle).  Subse- 
quently he  showed  himself  the  enemy  of  the  Church 
in  every  possible  way,  and,  meantime,  so  neglected  to 
provide  for  the  security  of  the  State  that  during  the 
war  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  King  Charles  had  to 
sign  an  act  of  neutrality  at  the  mouth  of  the  cannons 
of  a  British  man-of-war.  His  political  incapacity  con- 
tinued to  injure  the  country  during  the  reign  of  Ferdi- 
nand until  it  was  no  longer  reckoned  among  the 
military  powers  of  Europe.  Meantime,  he  kept  the 
young  king  in  ignorance  of  everything  so  as  to  maintain 
himself  in  power.  He  robbed  the  courts  of  justice  of 
their  power;  drew  up  the  Caroline  Code  which  was 
never  published;  ruined  the  finances  of  the  country, 
as  well  as  its  industry  and  agriculture,  and  allowed 
men  of  the  greatest  ability  and  learning  to  die  in 
penury.  In  brief,  says  his  biographer,  "Tanucci's 
reputation  both  before  and  after  his  death  is  a  mystery. 


Charles  III  527 

It  is  probably  due  to  his  prominence  as  a  bitter  enemy 
of  the  Holy  See.  He  seized  Beneventum  and  Ponte- 
corvo  which  belonged  to  the  Patrimony  of  Peter;  he 
suppressed  a  great  number  of  convents,  distributed 
abbeys  to  his  followers,  fomented  dissensions  against 
the  bishops  and,  of  course,  persecuted  the  Jesuits." 

When  Charles  III  of  Spain  expelled  the  Society  from 
Spain  everyone  knew  what  was  going  to  happen  in 
Sicily,  and  news  was  eagerly  expected  from  the  pen- 
insula. While  they  were  waiting,  an  eruption  of 
Vesuvius  took  place,  which  the  excitable  Italians 
regarded  as  a  sign  of  God's  wrath.  Penitential 
pilgrimages  were  organized  to  avert  the  danger  and 
angry  murmurs  were  heard  against  the  government. 
To  quell  the  tumult,  Tanucci  sent  out  word  that  the 
Jesuits  would  be  undisturbed,  though  ships  were  at 
that  time  on  their  way  to  carry  off  the  victims.  The 
young  king's  signature  to  the  decree  had,  however,  to 
be  procured,  but  he  angrily  refused  to  give  it  until 
the  official  confessor,  Latelle,  the  retired  Bishop  of 
Avellino  entreated  him  to  yield,  saying  that  he  him- 
self would  answer  for  it  on  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
The  prelate  did  not  know  that  he  himself  was  to  die 
at  the  end  of  the  month.  The  expulsion  took  place 
in  the  usual  dramatic  fashion.  At  midnight  of 
November  3,  1767,  squads  of  soldiers  descended  on 
every  Jesuit  establishment  in  the  land.  The  doors  were 
smashed  in;  the  furniture  shattered;  all  the  papers 
seized,  both  official  and  personal,  and  then  surrounded 
by  platoons  of  soldiers,  the  Fathers  were  led  like 
criminals  through  the  streets  to  the  nearest  beach  with 
nothing  but  the  clothes  on  their  backs.  The  whole 
affair  was  managed  with  such  lightning-like  rapidity, 
that  though  the  prisoners  had  been  taken  from  their 
houses  at  midnight,  they  were  out  at  sea  before  dawn 
and  were  heading  for  Ferrara. 


528  The  Jesuits 

At  Parma  another  Spanish  prince  ruled.  He  was 
still  a  child,  however,  but  his  minister  was  du  Fillot, 
a  statesman  of  the  .school  of  Tanucci  and  Choiseul. 
The  expulsion  took  place  simultaneously  on  the 
night  of  February  7,  1768  at  Piacenza,  Parma,  San 
Domino  and  Busseto.  In  the  first  city,  all  the  avail- 
able vehicles  of  the  place  had  been  requisitioned. 
At  seven  o'clock  at  night  a  dozen  soldiers  entered  the 
house.  Later,  an  officer,  two  adjutants  and  a  magis- 
trate appeared,  read  the  decree,  the  fourth  article  of 
which  declared  that  any  one  not  a  priest  or  professor 
who  would  take  off  the  habit  of  the  society  would  be 
received  among  the  faithful  subjects  of  his  royal 
highness.  The  fifth  announced  that  the  innate  clemency 
of  his  highness  accorded  an  annual  pension  of  sixty 
scudj  to  the  professed  and  forty  to  the  brothers  who 
were  his  subjects.  The  scholastics  were  to  get  nothing. 
In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  were  hurried  to  the  citadel 
where  carriages  and  carts  were  waiting  and  were 
driven  all  night  at  top  speed  to  Parma,  where  they 
arrived  at  day  break.  Passing  through  the  city  they 
caught  up  with  those  who  had  been  expelled  from  the 
other  places.  Half  an  hour's  rest  and  a  bite  to  eat 
were  allowed  and  then  the  journey  was  continued  on  to 
Reggio  and  Bologna.  Not  to  be  outdone  in  zeal  for 
the  king,  the  Knights  of  Malta  drove  them  from  the 
island  on  April  22,  1768.  The  expulsion  at  Parma  was 
disastrous  not  only  to  the  Jesuits  but  to  the  Pope. 
Parma  was  his  fief,  and  he  protested  against  the  action 
of  the  duke.  It  was  precisely  what  the  plotters  were 
waiting  for.  France  immediately  seized  the  Comtat 
Venaissin,  and  Naples  took  possession  of  Beneventum, 
both  of  which  belonged  to  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter. 
Of  course,  the  Jesuits  were  immediately  expelled  and 
their  property  confiscated. 


Charles  III  529 

The  expulsion  in  Spanish  America  meant  the  seizure 
of  at  least  158  establishments  belonging  to  the  Jesuits 
in  Mexico,  New  Granada,  Ecuador,  Peru  and  Chili. 
It  involved  the  flinging  out  into  the  world  of  2,943 
Jesuits,  some  of  them  old  and  infirm  and  absolutely 
unable  to  earn  their  living.  Of  those  who  embarked 
at  Valparaiso  sixty  were  drowned  in  the  wreck  of  the 
ship  "  Our  Lady  of  the  Hermitage."  Carayon  gives 
some  interesting  diaries  of  the  journeys  of  these  e"xiles 
(Doc.  inedits,  xvi),  while  Hubert  Bancroft  in  his 
monumental  work  of  thirty-nine  volumes  about  the 
Pacific  Coast  furnishes  abundant  and  valuable  infor- 
mation about  the  exodus  from  the  missions  of  Mexico. 
The  victims  underwent  the  same  sufferings  as  their 
Portuguese  brethren  in  the  long  journeys  over  mountains 
and  through  the  primeval  forests  and  in  the  long, 
horrible  crossing  of  the  ocean  to  their  native  land, 
which  they  were  thought  unworthy  to  enter. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   FINAL  BLOW 

Ganganelli  —  Political  plotting  at  the  Election  —  Bernis,  Aranda 
Aubeterre  —  The  Zelanti  —  Election  of  Clement  XIV  —  Renewal  of 
Jesuit  Privileges  by  the  new  Pope  —  Demand  of  the  Bourbons  for  a 
universal  Suppression  —  The  Three  Years  Struggle  —  Fanaticism  of 
Charles  III  —  Menaces  of  Schism  —  Mofiino  —  Maria  Theresa  — 
Spoliations  in  Italy  —  Signing  the  Brief  —  Imprisonment  of  Father 
Ricci  and  the  Assistants  —  Silence  and  Submission  of  the  Jesuits  to 
the  Pope's  Decree. 

As  early  as  1768,  the  Bourbon  courts  let  it  be  known 
that  they  would  make  a  formal  demand  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Society  throughout  Christendom.  On 
January  14  of  that  year,  Cardinal  Torregiani  wrote 
to  the  papal  nuncio  at  Madrid  as  follows:  "  His 
Holiness  is  horrified  at  the  attitude  of  the  king,  and 
indignant  that  the  demand  should  be  accompanied 
by  threats  to  force  his  hand,  so  as  to  wring  from  him 
a  concession  which  is  in  violation  of  divine,  natural 
and  ecclesiastical  law.  If  any  mention  of  it  is  made 
to  you  again,  dismiss  immediately  the  person  who 
dares  to  suggest  it."  That  stinging  rebuke,  however, 
did  not  halt  the  stubborn  Charles,  and  in  the  January 
of  1769  the  coalition  began  its  attack.  First  came  the 
Spanish  representative  who  presented  himself  for  an 
audience  on  the  eighteenth.  The  Pope  received  him 
with  dignified  reserve;  gave  expression  to  the  intense 
pain  caused  by  the  request,  and  then,  bursting  into 
tears,  withdrew.  On  the  twentieth  and  twenty-second 
respectively,  Orsini,  representing  Naples,  made  his 
appearance  and  after  him  Aubeterre,  on  behalf  of 
France.  They  were  both  abruptly  dismissed.  The 
French  document  was  especially  insulting.  It  advised 

530 


The  Final  Blow  531 

the  Pope  to  admit  the  demand  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  based  on  a  sincere  and  well-informed  zeal  for  the 
progress  of  religion,  the  interest  of  the  Roman  Church, 
and  the  peace  of  Christendom.  The  use  of  the  ex- 
pression "  Roman  "  Church  was  an  evident  hint  at 
schism. 

On  January  25,  a  formal  reply  was  sent  to  the  three 
courts,  informing  them  that  "  the  Pope  could  not 
explain  the  deplorable  audacity  they  had  displayed  in 
adding  to  the  sorrows  that  already  overwhelmed  the 
Church,  a  new  anguish  the  only  purpose  of  which 
was  to  torture  the  conscience  and  distress  the  soul 
of  His  Holiness.  An  impartial  posterity  would  judge 
if  such  acts  could  be  regarded  as  a  new  proof  of  that 
filial  love  which  these  sovereigns  boast  of  having  for 
His  Holiness  personally,  and  an  assurance  of  that 
attachment  which  they  pretend  to  show  for  the  Holy 
See."  On  January  28,  Cardinal  Negroni  told  the 
ambassadors :  '  You  are  digging  the  grave  of  the 
Holy  Father."  The  prophecy  was  almost  immediately 
fulfilled,  for  on  February  2  Clement  XIII  died  of  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy.  He  had  officiated  at  the  ceremonies 
of  that  day,  and  had  shown  no  sign  of  illness.  The 
blow  was  a  sudden  one,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
this  joint  act  of  the  Bourbon  kings  had  caused  his 
death.  De  Ravignan  does  not  hesitate  to  describe  him 
as  a  martyr  who  died  in  defence  of  the  rights  of  the 
Church.  He  is  blamed  by  some  for  "  his  lack  of 
foresight  in  not  yielding  to  the  exigencies  of  the  times." 
But  there  were  other  "  exigencies  of  the  times  "  besides 
those  formulated  by  the  men  "  who  knew  not  the  secrets 
of  God,  nor  hoped  for  the  wages  of  justice,  nor  esteemed 
the  honor  of  holy  souls,"  and  the  Pope's  foresight 
was  not  limited  by  the  horizons  of  Pombal,  Choiseul 
and  Charles  III.  "  His  pontificate,"  as  has  been  well 
said,  "  affords  the  spectacle  of  a  saint  clad  in  moral 


532  The  Jesuits 

strength,  contending  alone  against  the  powers  of 
the  world.  Such  a  spectacle  is  an  acquisition  forever." 
For  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  those  arrayed  against 
him  in  this  fight  were  not  aiming  merely  at  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  That  was  only  a 
secondary  consideration.  Their  purpose  was  to  destroy 
the  Church,  and  in  its  defence  Pope  Clement  XIII 
died. 

A  new  Pope  was  now  to  be  elected  and  the  alarming 
influence  wielded  by  the  statesmen  of  Europe  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs  now  assumed  proportions  which 
seemed  to  menace  the  destruction  of  the  Church 
itself.  In  his  "Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV" 
(P-  552)  de  Ravignan  gives  an  extract  from  Theiner 
which  is  startling.  In  1769,  that  is  before  the  election, 
we  find  all  the  cardinals  tabulated  as  "  good;"  "  bad;" 
"indifferent;"  "doubtful;"  "worst;"  "null."  Their 
ages  are  given ;  their  characters, their  political  tendencies. 
Among  those  marked  "  good  "  is  Ganganelli;  Rezzonico, 
the  nephew  of  Clement  XIII  is  in  the  category  of  the 
"  worst;"  the  Cardinal  of  York  is  "  null."  There  are 
eleven  who  are  labelled  "  papabili,"  ten  to  be  excluded 
and  fourteen  to  be  avoided.  It  is  even  settled  who 
is  to  be  secretary  of  State.  Weekly  instructions  in 
this  matter  were  sent  from  the  court  of  Spain  to  its 
agents  at  Rome,  whose  motto  was:  "nee  turpe  est 
quod  dominus  jubet  —  nothing  is  base  if  the  king  orders 
it."  They  were  at  that  time  precisely  the  kind  of 
men  that  the  implacable  Charles  III  needed  to  sustain 
him  in  his  iniquitous  measure :  unprincipled  clerics  like 
Sales,  or  savages  like  Monino,  or  Aspuru,  who  could 
write:  "What  matter  thsrt  the  charges  are  not 
proved  ?  The  accused  has  been  condemned.  We  have 
not  to  establish  his  guilt."  As  for  the  flippant  Bernis 
and  the  infidel  Aubeterre,  they  were  good  enough  for 
the  royal  debauchee,  Louis  XV.  Aubeterre  had  been 


The  Final  Blow  533 

a  soldier,  was  now  a  diplomat  and  had  lost  his  faith 
by  contact  with  the  revolting  indecencies  of  the 
regency,  while  Bernis,  says  Carayon,  was  "  a  dis- 
tinguished type  of  French  vanity  who  talked  much, 
schemed  continually  and  fancied  he  controlled  the 
conclave  though  he  was  only  a  fly  on  the  wheel.  He 
was  not  ashamed  to  admit  that  he  owed  his  red  hat  to 
la  Pompadour." 

Bernis'  correspondence  with  his  government  is 
valuable  not  only  in  showing  how  unscrupulous  were 
the  methods  of  coercion  employed  but  in  revealing 
the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  conspirators,  viz.  the 
establishment  of  state  churches  in  their  several  king- 
doms. He  and  de  Luynes  were  instructed  to  insist 
that  the  new  Pope  should:  first,  annul  the  Brief  of 
Clement  XIII  against  Parma;  secondly,  recognize  the 
independent  sovereignty  of  the  Prince;  thirdly,  re- 
linquish Avignon  and  the  Comtat  Venaissin  to  France, 
and  Beneventum  to  Sicily;  fourthly,  exile  Cardinal 
Torregiani,  the  prime  minister  of  Clement  XIII; 
fifthly,  completely  abolish  the  Society  of  Jesus; 
secularize  its  members,  and  expel  Father  Ricci,  the 
the  General,  from  Rome.  They  let  it  be  known  that 
there  would  be  no  backing  down  on  these  five  points. 

It  was  chiefly  to  secure  the  suppression  of  the 
Society  that  the  fight  was  to  be  made.  The  other 
matters  could  be  left,  if  necessary,  for  future  adjust- 
ment. If  every  other  means  failed,  intimidation  was 
to  be  resorted  to.  Indeed,  as  a  preparation,  veiled 
threats  began  to  be  heard  from  several  quarters. 
Thus,  for  instance,  Louis  XV  put  his  name  to  the 
following  insulting  letter :  ' '  My  sincere  and  constant 
wish  is,"  he  said,  "  that  the  Barque  of  Peter  should 
be  entrusted  to  a  pilot  who  is  enlightened  enough  to 
appreciate  the  necessity  of  having  the  Head  of  the 
Church  remain  in  the  most  perfect  harmony  with  all 


534  The  Jesuits 

the  sovereigns  of  the  Roman  Faith;  and  of  being  wise 
enough  to  avoid  every  inconsiderate  measure  prompted 
by  indiscreet  and  extravagant  zeal;  in  brief,  one  who 
will  shape  his  policy  by  the  rules  of  moderation, 
prudence  and  sweetness  in  keeping  with  divine  wisdom 
and  human  politics."  Such  language  from  the  "  Most 
Christian  King  "  was  an  outrage  on  the  memory  of 
Clement  XIII;  and  the  words  "Roman  Faith" 
contained,  as  on  a  previous  occasion,  a  threat  of  schism. 
Schoell,  the  Protestant  historian,  says  that  "  the 
formation  of  State  Churches  in  the  three  kingdoms 
was  clearly  the  avowed  purpose  of  these  plotters." 

The  "  Zelanti "  were  in  the  majority,  but  that 
difficulty  was  soon  disposed  of  by  the  veto  power 
which  had  been  granted  to  the  Catholic  sovereigns. 
Making  full  use  of  it,  they  shamelessly  forbade  the 
consideration  of  any  candidate  who  was  suspected  of 
being  unfriendly  to  them,  with  the  result  that  the 
number  of  eligible  candidates  was  speedily  reduced 
to  eleven;  and  as  most  of  these  latter  were  old  or 
infirm  they  could  not  be  even  considered  by  the  electors. 
At  this  point,  Bernis  protested  against  being  excessive 
in  the  eliminations.  Finally  there  were  only  two 
cardinals  who  could  be  considered  papabili :  Ganganelli 
and  Stoppani. 

On  March  7,  1769,  instructions  arrived  from  Madrid 
emphatically  insisting  that  the  election  of  no  Pope 
would  be  recognized  who  would  not  first  bind  himself 
to  grant  the  five  points  insisted  upon  by  the  Bourbon 
kings,  but  when  the  two  Spanish  cardinals  at  Rome 
represented  to  Charles  III  that  such  a  proposal  to  the 
electors  would  involve  serious  risks,  the  obstinate 
king  insisted,  nevertheless,  that  he  would  yield  on 
three  of  the  points,  but  that  he  would  have  to  exact 
absolutely  as  a  condition  of  election  that  the  new  Pope 
would  promise  to  cancel  the  previous  Pontiff's  action 


The  Final  Blow  535 

with  regard  to  the  Duke  of  Parma,  and  also  suppress 
the  whole  Society  of  Jesus.  He  wanted  the  conclave 
to  pass  a  decree  to  that  effect.  Even  in  the  Parma 
affair,  he  was  willing  to  relent,  because  as  Clement 
XIII  was  dead,  his  ruling  might  be  considered  as 
having  lapsed,  but  as  for  the  Society  of  Jesus,  nothing 
would  satisfy  him  except  its  absolute  extinction.  That 
much  was  due,  he  said,  to  the  three  powerful  monarchs 
on  whom  the  Church  depended  for  support.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  it  would  not  be  proper  to  compromise 
the  reputation  of  these  kings  by  letting  it  be  known 
that  such  a  deal  was  being  made,  for  it  might  happen 
to  fail;  it  was  thought  better  not  to  give  any  precise 
orders,  but  to  leave  to  the  discretion  of  those  who  were 
on  the  spot  to  determine  what  means  should  be  em- 
ployed for  bringing  about  the  desired  results. 

The  project  of  getting  a  distinct  decree  from  the 
conclave  in  the  sense  of  the  King  of  Spain  was 
abandoned,  but  while  the  political  cardinals  would 
not  hear  of  exacting  a  written  promise,  the  ambassadors 
who  were  working  on  the  outside,  openly  avowed  that 
they  had  no  scruples  about  it.  Indeed,  Aubeterre,  the 
French  ambassador,  wrote  to  Choiseul  in  France 
complaining  that  he  and  his  fellow-diplomats  felt  hurt 
that  their  proposal  should  be  rejected  for  moral  reasons, 
especially  as  they  had  secretly  consulted  an  excellent 
canonist,  who  ruled  that  there  would  be  no  harm 
in  imposing  on  the  new  Pontiff  the  obligation  of 
fulfilling  the  contract  inside  of  a  year,  dating  from  the 
day  of  his  election.  Not  only  was  it  permissible,  he 
said,  but,  in  the  circumstances,  it  was  imperatively 
urgent  for  the  good  of  the  Church.  "  The  excellent 
canonist  "  here  referred  to  was  Azpuru,  the  Spanish 
ambassador,  but  as  Cardinals  Orsini,  Bernis  and  de 
Luynes  insisted  that  such  a  contract  would  be 
simoniacal,  they  were  informed  that  if  an  unacceptable 


536  The  Jesuits 

Pope  was  elected  there  would  be  an  immediate  rupture 
of  relations  with  the  Holy  See  and  the  representatives 
of  the  three  Powers  would  withdraw  from  Rome. 
They  were  further  told  that  it  was  hoped  that  the 
fanatics,  or  Zelanti,  would  not  drive  them  to  such 
an  extremity.  D'Aubeterre  who  voiced  the  opinion 
of  his  associates  went  so  far  as  to  say,  that  any  election 
which  had  not  been  arranged  beforehand  with  the 
court  would  not  be  recognized. 

Finally,  after  the  conclave  had  been  in  session  from 
February  13  to  May  19,  Cardinal  Ganganelli  was 
elected  Pope  and  took  the  name  of  Clement  XIV.  He 
was  considered  "  acceptable,"  especially  by  Spain. 
According  to  Cordara,  however,  his  elevation  to  the 
pontifical  throne  was  not  due  to  the  influence  or  the 
manipulations  of  the  Spanish  cardinals  but  was  brought 
about  as  follows: —  "  From  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
clave two  or  three  votes  were  deposited  in  his  favor,  but 
he  was  never  seriously  thought  of  as  Pope.  Indeed, 
Cardinal  Castelli,  whose  learning  and  piety  gave 
him  great  influence  in  the  Sacred  College,  was  strongly 
opposed  to  him.  Suddenly,  however,  he  changed  his 
opinion  and  declared  that,  having  considered  the  matter 
more  thoroughly,  he  was  convinced  that  in  the  actual 
circumstances,  no  one  was  better  fitted  for  the  post 
than  Ganganelli.  From  that  moment,  those  who  had 
been  opposed  to  him  regarded  him  favorably.  Even 
Rezzonico,  the  nephew  of  Clement  XIII,  who  had 
many  reasons  to  vote  against  him  said  he  would  take 
the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  the  cardinals.  Hence  the 
only  one  against  him  was  Orsini  who  said  that  "  the 
Franciscan  was  a  Jesuit  in  disguise."  He  was,  there- 
fore, after  the  fight  had  raged  for  100  days,  elected  by 
forty-six  out  of  forty-seven  votes.  The  forty-seventh 
was  his  own,  which  he  cast  in  favor  of  Rezzonico. 
It  is  not  true  that  he  had  made  a  promise  to  suppress 


The  Final  Blow  537 

the  Society  in  case  of  election.  Azpuru,  the  Spanish 
agent,  wrote  on  May  8:  "  No  one  has  gone  so  far  as 
to  propose  to  anyone  to  give  a  written  or  verbal 
promise  ";  and  after  May  13,  he  added:  "  Ganganelli 
neither  made  a  promise  nor  refused  it."  Unfortu- 
nately some  of  his  written  words  were  interpreted  as 
implying  it. 

Ganganelli  was  born  in  the  town  of  Sant'  Arcangelo, 
near  Rimini,  on  October  31,  1705,  and  was  baptised 
Giovanni  Vincenzo  Antonio,  but  took  the  name  of 
Lorenzo  when  he  became  a  Conventual  of  St.  Francis. 
His  life  as  a  friar  was  characterized  by  piety  and 
intense  application  to  study.  He  was  noted  for  his 
admiration  of  everything  pertaining  to  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  and,  indeed,  Pope  Clement  XIII  when  making 
him  a  cardinal  said,  "  there  is  now  a  Jesuit  in  the 
Sacred  College  in  the  habit  of  a  Franciscan."  But 
"  the  purple  seemed  to  change  him,"  says  Cordara, 
"  and  from  that  out  he  was  more  reserved  in  his 
manifestations  of  friendship."  As  Pope  he  was  as 
simple  in  his  way  of  life  as  when  living  with  his  commu- 
nity; he  was  gentle,  affable,  kind,  rarely  ruffled,  never 
precipitate  and  never  carried  away  by  inconsiderate  zeal. 
He  would  have  made  an  admirable  Pope  in  better 
times.  But  when  he  was  given  control  of  the  Barque 
of  Peter  a  wild  storm  was  sweeping  over  the  world. 
Venice,  Parma,  Naples,  France,  Spain  and  Portugal 
were  arrayed  against  him  —  some  of  them  threatening 
separation  from  the  Church.  Austria,  the  only  Cath- 
olic government  that  remained,  observed  neutrality  at 
first,  but  finally  went  to  the  wrong  side.  In  brief, 
a  fierce  and  united  anti-religious  element  dominated  all 
Catholic  Europe,  and  the  rest  was  Protestant. 

Of  course,  immediately  after  his  election,  felici- 
tations rained  upon  him,  but  as  de  Ravignan  expresses 
it,  "  they  were  like  flowers  on  the  head  of  the  victim 


538  The  Jesuits 

that  was  to  be  immolated."  Indeed,  even  in  the 
congratulations  harsh  notes  were  heard,  as  when  France 
expressed  its  hope  that  the  Holy  See  would  show  more 
condescension  to  the  powers  than  usual,  and  when 
Spain  "  urgently  called  the  attention  of  His  Holi- 
ness to  certain  petitions  which  had  been  presented 
to  him."  The  Spanish  ambassador,  Azpuru,  reminded 
him  in  the  very  first  audience  that  application  had 
already  been  made  to  his  predecessor  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  Jesuits.  The  representatives  of  France, 
Portugal  and  Naples  chanted  the  same  dirge.  Before 
three  months  had  elapsed,  there  was  an  explosion  that 
shook  Christendom.  Following  an  accepted  custom, 
the  Pope  issued  the  septennial  Brief  of  indulgences  in 
favor  of  the  missionaries  "  to  bestow  the  treasures  of 
heavenly  blessings  on  those  who,  to  our  knowledge, 
are  laboring  with  indefatigable  zeal  for  the  salvation 
of  souls.  We  include  among  these  fervent  apostles, 
the  Religious  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  especially 
those  whom  our  beloved  son,  Lorenzo  Ricci,  is  to  assign 
this  year  and  afterwards,  in  various  provinces  of  the 
Society,  to  that  work;  and  we  most  certainly  desire  to 
promote  and  increase  by  these  spiritual  favors  the  piety 
and  the  active  and  enterprising  zeal  of  those  Religious." 
It  was  a  thunderbolt.  Fierce  protests  were  made  in 
Spain,  Naples,  Parma  and  France.  Choiseul,  who,  up 
to  that  time,  had  been  suave  in  his  malice,  lost  his 
temper  completely  and  ordered  the  Ambassador  Bernis 
not  only  to  make  a  public  demand  for  the  suppression 
of  the  Society  but  to  order  the  Pope  to  begin  it  inside  of 
two  months.  "  This  Pope  is  trifling  with  us,"  he 
said;  "  and  if  he  does  not  come  to  terms  he  can  con- 
sider all  relations  with  France  at  an  end."  He  became 
grossly  insulting  and  declared  that  "  he  had  enough  of 
this  monkery;"  he  would  upset  the  plans  of  theFratacci; 
and  annihilate  his  Roman  finesse.  "  A  monk  was 


The  Final  Blow  539 

always  a  monk,"  he  said  "and  it  was  very  hard  for  an 
Italian  monk  to  be  honest  and  frank  in  business 
matters."  Choiseul's  varnish  of  courtesy  had  been  all 
rubbed  off  by  the  incident,  and  he  wanted  to  know 
"who  were  going  to  win  in  the  fight?  the  kings  or 
the  Jesuits?  If  I  were  amabssador  at  Rome,"  he 
wrote  to  Bernis,  "  I  would  be  ashamed  to  see  Father 
Ricci  the  antagonist  of  my  master." 

Bernis,  Cardinal  though  he  was,  meekly  replied: 
"  Of  course  the  kings  must  win,  but  only  the  Pope  can 
make  them  win.  However,  he  has  to  do  it  according  to 
the  prescriptions  of  canon  law,  and  must  save  his  own 
reputation  as  well  as  that  of  the  clergy.  Moreover, 
as  he  is  a  temporal  sovereign,  he  has  to  consider  the 
courts  of  Vienna,  Turin  and  Poland,  and  all  that  takes 
time.  Personally,  he  means  to  keep  the  promise  already 
given  to  the  three  crowns  to  suppress  the  Society,  and 
has  shown  his  mind  on  that  point  by  public  acts 
against  the  Fathers.  He  will  renew  the  promise 
explicitly  and  immediately,  in  a  letter  written  in  his 
own  hand  to  the  King  of  Spain.  He  is  not  feeble  or 
false  as  you  seem  to  think.  Time  will  show  that  such 
is  his  purpose.  But,  first,  the  way  to  lose  the  battle 
with  the  Jesuit  General  is  to  begin  now.  The  Pope 
cannot  and  will  not  do  it  without  preparation. 
Secondly,  France  and  Spain  must  agree  on  the  time 
and  manner  of  arriving  at  the  extinction  of  the  Jesuits. 
Thirdly,  it  would  be  wiser  to  restrict  the  suppression 
to  the  Papal  States,  and  not  attempt  it  in  countries 
that  are  favorable  to  the  Society.  Fourthly,  a  good 
preliminary  would  be  to  forbid  the  reception  of  novices, 
as  the  Pope  has  already  done  in  his  own  dominions. 
Marefoschi  and  I  put  that  into  his  head.  Fifthly,  I 
also  proposed  the  seizure  of  the  archives,  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  Vicar  General,  to  whom  Father  Ricci  will 
render  an  account  of  his  administration." 


540  The  Jesuits 

Bernis'  temporising,  however,  only  exasperated  the 
foes  of  the  Society,  especially  Charles  III.  Never- 
theless, he  succeeded  in  inducing  the  Pope  to  write  to 
Louis  XV  on  September  30,  and  in  this  communica- 
cation  a  promise  was  made  to  do  all  the  king  wanted. 
But  that  was  not  enough  for  Charles.  To  force  the 
issue,  he  ordered  all  the  Jesuit  property  in  Spain  to  be 
put  up  at  auction,  and  a  copy  of  the  decree  was  sent 
to  the  Pope.  That  was  on  November  8,  and  on 
November  13,  a  joint  letter  was  sent  by  the  three 
powers  requesting  Clement  to  publish  a  Brief  motu 
proprio,  that  is  on  his  own  initiative,  as  if  they  had 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  approving  all  that  the 
Bourbon  princes  had  done  against  the  Society;  and 
also  to  send  to  their  majesties  the  plan  he  proposed 
to  follow  in  carrying  out  its  complete  suppression. 
Clement  humbly  submitted  to  the  outrage,  and  seven 
days  later,  Bernis  was  able  to  write  to  Choiseul: 
"  His  Holiness  has  renewed  in  the  strongest  manner 
the  two  promises  he  had  made  to  the  Bourbon  kings 
with  regard  to  the  Brief  approving  the  missionaries, 
and  the  plan  to  suppress  the  Jesuit  Order.  He  has 
commissioned  me  to  positively  assure  the  ministers  of 
the  powers  on  that  point." 

Spain  wanted  even  more  than  that ;  and  on  November, 
zzd,  Azpuru  told  the  Pope  that  if  he  did  not  send  a 
manuscript  letter  to  the  king  promising  the  suppression, 
extreme  measures  would  be  resorted  to,  and  the  rupture 
of  relations  which  had  been  begun  in  1767  and  which 
was  so  disastrous  to  the  Church  in  Spain  would  be 
carried  to  its  limit.  He  was  not  exaggerating,  and 
the  nuncio  at  Madrid  wrote  that  the  king  was  so  set 
on  his  purpose,  that  they  did  not  know  what  mad 
thing  he  might  do  to  gain  his  point.  The  general 
impression  was  that  Charles  was  on  the  verge  of 
insanity. 


The  Final  Blow  541 

To  quiet  him,  the  Pope  wrote,  on  November  30,  to 
say  positively  that  he  would  carry  out  the  will  of  the 
courts.  "  We  have  gathered  all  the  documents,"  he 
said,  "  that  are  needed  for  writing  the  motu  proprio 
agreed  upon;  so  as  to  justify  to  the  whole  world,  the 
wise  conduct  of  your  majesty  in  expelling  the  Jesuits, 
as  troublesome  and  turbulent  subjects.  As  we  are 
carrying  on  our  government,  unaided,  although  crushed 
by  the  weight  and  multiplicity  of  questions  that 
have  to  be  settled,  you  will  understand  that  it  is 
not  forgetfulness  but  merely  the  unavoidable  delay 
required  to  bring  this  important  matter  to  a 
successful  issue."  Indeed  at  that  time  Clement 
had  secluded  himself  from  everyone.  He  was  in 
constant  fear  of  being  poisoned,  and  had  his  food 
prepared  by  a  Cordelier  lay-brother.  "  We  beg  Your 
Majesty,"  he  continued,  "  to  put  your  entire  confi- 
dence in  us,  for  we  have  fully  resolved  to  act,  and  we 
are  preparing  to  give  to  the  public  incontestable 
proofs  of  our  sincerity.  We  shall  submit  to  the  wis- 
dom and  intelligence  of  Your  Majesty  a  plan  for  the 
total  extinction  of  this  Society ;  and  Your  Majesty  will 
receive  it  shortly.  We  shall  not  cease  to  give  gen- 
uine proofs  of  our  attachment  and  our  veneration 
for  Your  Majesty  to  whom  in  the  plenitude  of  our 
paternal  affection  we  give  our  apostolic  benediction  " 
(De  Ravignan,  "Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV," 
I,  295). 

Bernis  gave  himself  the  credit  of  having  got  the 
Pope  to  write  this  letter,  and  said  that  now:  "  His 
Holiness  could  not  escape  carrying  out  his  promise. 
He  will  be  forced  to  do  it,  in  spite  of  his  unwillingness, 
for  he  knows  that  the  king  is  too  intelligent  not  to 
publish  the  letter,  and  the  Pope  will  be  disgraced  if  he 
does  not  keep  his  word"  (Saint-Priest,  p.  131).  Thus 
six  months  after  his  election,  he  was  bound  by  a  written 


542  The  Jesuits 

and  absolute  promise  to  suppress  the  Society;  though  he 
was  continually  saying  "  questa  supressione  mi  dard 
la  morte"  (this  suppression  will  kill  me).  At  this 
stage  of  the  proceedings  little  Naples  was  becoming 
obstreperous.  Tanucci  had  seized  the  Greek  College 
and  expelled  the  Jesuits.  He  then  claimed  the  property 
of  all  religious  communities,  and  when  remonstrated 
with,  he  replied  that  "  he  was  going  to  keep  on  thwart- 
ing every  order  that  came  from  Rome,  until  the  Society 
of  Jesus  was  abolished."  In  1770  the  Pope  cancelled 
the  excommunication  of  the  Duke  of  Parma  to  gratify 
the  sovereigns,  but  the  satisfaction  that  ensued  did  not 
last  long.  Cardinal  Pacca,  who  was  quasi-nuncio  at 
Lisbon  just  then,  notes  the  disorders  prevalent  in 
the  country  especially  in  the  University  of  Coimbra, 
where  the  worst  kind  of  teaching  was  permitted. 
On  July  3,  1770,  Bernis  wrote  to  Choiseul:  "  I 
heard  that  the  Founder  of  the  Passionists,  Paul  of 
the  Cross,  has  warned  the  Pope  to  watch  over  his 
kitchen,  and  hence  Brother  Francisco  who  looks  after 
the  Pope's  household  has  redoubled  his  vigilance. 
I  do  not  know  if  it  is  on  account  of  this  warning,  but 
in  any  case  the  Pope  has  gone  to  some  mineral  springs 
for  treatment  and  is  to  be  there  for  the  next  fortnight." 
Ten  days  afterwards,  Choiseul  replied:  "  I  cannot 
imagine  the  Pope  is  so  credulous  or  so  cowardly  as  to 
be  so  easily  frightened  by  reports  about  attempts  on 
his  life.  The  Society  of  Jesus  has  been  looked  upon 
as  dangerous  because  of  its  doctrines,  its  Institute 
and  its  intrigues  in  the  countries  from  which  they 
have  been  expelled;  but  they  have  not  been  accused 
of  being  poisoners.  It  is  only  the  base  jealousy  and 
fanatical  hatred  of  some  monks  that  could  suspect 
such  a  thing.  The  General  of  the  Passionists  might 
have  dispensed  himself  from  giving  such  indiscreet 
advice  to  the  Pope,  which  seems  to  have  aggravated 


The  Final  Blow  543 

the  illness  of  which  he  was  already  complaining." 
As  this  General  of  the  Passionists  was  no  other  than 
the  saintly  Paul  of  the  Cross,  who  has  been  since 
raised  to  the  honors  of  the  altar,  one  may  form  some 
idea  of  the  infamous  devices  resorted  to  in  all  this  business. 
Far  from  being  unfriendly,  Paul  of  the  Cross  writes: 
"  I  am  extremly  pained  by  the  sufferings  of  the 
illustrious  Company  of  Jesus.  The  very  thought  of 
all  those  innocent  religious  being  persecuted,  in  so  many 
ways,  makes  me  weep  and  groan.  The  devil  is  triumph- 
ing; God's  glory  is  diminished,  and  multitudes  of 
souls  are  deprived  of  all  spiritual  help.  I  pray,  night 
and  day  that,  after  the  storm  is  passed,  God  who  gives 
both  life  and  death  may  resuscitate  the  Society  with 
greater  glory  than  before.  Such  have  been  always,  and 
such  still  are,  my  feelings  towards  the  Jesuits." 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  Pope  was  really 
frightened.  His  cheerfulness  had  vanished,  his  health 
had  failed,  and  his  features  wore  an  anxious  and  haunted 
look.  He  kept  in  seclusion,  and,  as  has  been  said, 
would  let  no  one  prepare  his  meals  but  his  fellow-friar, 
Brother  Francisco,  who  remained  with  him  till  the  end. 
He  was  evidently  fighting  for  time;  hoping,  no  doubt, 
that  something  might  occur  to  absolve  him  from  his 
promise.  But  his  enemies  were  relentless.  Charles 
III  was  more  than  fanatical  in  his  insistency,  and 
finally  Clement  appointed  Marefoschi,  an  open  enemy 
of  the  Jesuits,  to  prepare  the  Brief.  The  task  was 
joyfully  accepted,  but  the  Pope  discovered  that  it 
was  not  written  in  the  usual  pontifical  style.  That 
excuse,  however,  was  regarded  by  his  assailants,  as 
a  trick,  and  they  complained  of  it  bitterly.  Then 
it  was  alleged  that  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  who 
was  not  averse  to  the  Jesuits,  had  to  be  consulted. 
Indeed,  she  had  given  out  that  as  long  as  she  lived 
they  had  nothing  to  fear  in  her  dominions,  but  she 


544  The  Jesuits 

failed  to  keep  her  word.  Subsequently,  a  promise 
was  given  not  to  allow  Father  Ricci  to  have  a  successor 
or  to  admit  novices  into  the  Order;  then  a  general 
council  was  proposed  to  decide  the  question,  but  all 
was  of  no  avail. 

At  this  point,  December  25,  1770,  Choiseul  fell  from 
power,  and  the  world  began  to  breathe  for  a  short 
spell,  hoping  that  this  might  affect  the  situation,  but 
d'Aiguillon,  his  successor,  was  just  as  bad.  Moreover, 
Saint-Priest,  in  his  "  Chute  des  Jesuites  "  (p.  127) 
uses  the  incident  for  a  nasty  insult.  He  attributes 
Choiseul 's  fall  to  the  regard  that  Madame  du  Barry 
had  for  the  Society.  "Thank  God!"  exclaims  de 
Ravignan,  "  the  Society  has  never  had  such  a  pro- 
tectress." She  was  admired  by  Voltaire,  who  hailed 
her  as  another  Egeria,  but  no  Jesuit  ever  sought  her 
protection.  Their  only  advocate  at  the  court  at 
that  sad  period  was  the  saintly  daughter  of  the  king, 
who  became  a  Carmelite  nun  to  expiate  her  father's 
sins.  The  real  cause  of  Choiseul's  downfall  was  that 
Maupeou  showed  to  Louis  XV  some  of  Choiseul's 
letters  urging  parliament  "  not  to  yield  in  the  fight, 
for  the  king  would  sustain  the  Society  with  all  his 
power."  "  It  was  not  hard,"  says  Foisset  in  "  Le 
President  des  Brosses  "  (p.  302),  "  for  du  Barry  to 
persuade  the  king  that  those  letters  were  meant  to 
incite  the  parliament  to  rebellion  against  him."  She 
hated  Choiseul  who,  though  willing  to  pay  court  to 
Pompadour,  had  no  respect  for  the  low  and  coarse 
du  Barry. 

At  this  point,  the  Pope  offered  another  inducement 
to  the  King  of  Spain:  the  canonization  of  Palafox, 
whom  Charles  III  worshipped,  but  that  failed,  though 
a  little  respite  was  gained  by  the  help  of  the  king's 
confessor;  and  certain  discussions  with  regard  to  the 
restitution  of  the  papal  territories  also  contributed 


The  Final  Blow  545 

to  delay  the  disaster.  The  year  1771  had  now  been 
reached,  and  to  afford  some  satisfaction  to  the  foe, 
the  Pope  established  a  commission  or  congregation  of 
cardinals  to  examine  the  financial  conditions  of  the 
Society.  At  its  head  was  the  fierce  Marefoschi,  who 
began  by  seizing  the  Roman  Seminary.  Thus  matters 
dragged  on  till  1772.  Up  to  that  time  very  little 
progress  had  been  made,  and  people  were  beginning 
to  talk  about  the  impossibility  of  abolishing  the  whole 
Order,  or  even  a  part  of  it  without  "  proper  juridical 
investigation."  Even  Bernis  told  his  government  that 
"  there  was  too  much  heat  in  this  Jesuit  affair  to 
permit  the  Pope  to  explain  his  real  thoughts  about 
the  suppression;  "  but,  though  Aranda  was  out  of 
office  and  Choiseul  likewise,  the  implacable  Charles  III 
was  determined  to  put  an  end  to  the  delay  and  instead 
of  Azpuru,  he  sent  the  fierce  Jose  Monino,  otherwise 
known  as  Florida  Blanca  to  be  his  ambassador  in  Rome. 
Under  an  affable  and  polished  exterior  Monino  was 
in  reality  very  brutal.  He  simply  terrorized  the  Pope, 
who  put  off  receiving  him  for  a  week  after  his  arrival 
and  invented  all  sorts  of  excuses  not  to  see  him.  When 
at  last  they  met,  the  Pope  was  pale  and  excited  but 
Monino  had  resolved  to  end  the  siege.  He  dismissed 
absolutely  all  question  of  a  reform  of  the  Order.  What 
he  wanted  was  suppression,  or  else  there  would  be  a 
rupture  with  Spain.  In  vain  the  Pope  entreated  him 
to  wait  for  Ricci's  death;  but  the  angry  minister  re- 
jected the  offer  with  scorn,  and  the  Pope  after  being 
humiliated,  insulted  and  outraged,  withdrew  to  his 
apartments,  exclaiming  with  sobs  in  his  voice:  "  God 
forgive  the  Catholic  King."  "  It  was  Monino,"  said  a 
diplomat  then  at  Rome,  "  who  got  the  Brief  of  1773; 
but  he  did  not  obtain  it;  he  tore  it  from  the  Pope's 
hand."  Under  instructions  from  Charles  III,  Monino 
told  the  Pope,  "  I  will  disgrace  you  by  publishing  the 
35 


546  The  Jesuits 

letter  you  wrote  to  the  king,"  and  he  laid  before  the 
Pontiff  a  plan  drawn  up  by  himself  and  the  other 
ministers  of  Charles  III  to  carry  out  the  suppression. 
De  Ravignan  condemns  Cretineau-Joly  for  having 
published  this  paper.  "  It  would  have  been  better  to 
have  left  it  in  the  secret  archives." 

In  Monino's  plan  of  action  he  declares  that  "  it  was 
not  advisable  to  enter  into  details;  so  as  not  to  allow 
any  ground  for  discussion,  as  it  would  do  harm  to 
religion  and  uselessly  defame  the  character  of  the 
Jesuits."  The  king's  reasons  had  already  been  made 
known  to  the  Holy  See.  They  were  three  in  number. 
The  first  was  "  they  had  caused  the  Sombrero  Riot 
in  Madrid;  "  the  second:  "their  moral  and  doctrinal 
teaching  was  bad;"  the  third,  and  this  was  the  most 
extraordinary  of  all:  "they  had  always  persecuted 
the  holiest  bishops  and  persons  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Spain."  The  last  item  probably  referred  to  Palafox. 
His  Majesty  had  not  yet  revealed  the  important 
secret  which  he  kept  "  locked  in  his  royal  heart."  All 
the  terrible  statements  of  the  documents  alleged  to 
have  been  seized  by  Marefoschi  were  to  be  of  no  use, 
when  compared  with  the  Riot  of  the  Sombreros. 

Meantime  conditions  were  every  day  growing  worse 
in  Europe.  The  publications  of  Voltaire  and  his 
friends  were  destroying  both  religion  and  morality. 
The  fulminations  of  the  Pope  against  these  books 
availed  little,  and  meantime  he  was  about  to  crush  the 
men  who  were  best  able  to  face  the  enemy.  Finally, 
poor  Poland  was  being  cut  up  by  Prussia,  Russia  and 
Austria  and  the  Pope  was  powerless  to  prevent  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  were  some  consolations.  Thus 
in  1771  the  Armenian  patriarch  and  all  his  people 
renounced  Nestorianism  and  returned  to  the  unity  of 
the  Church.  Between  1771  and  1772  seven  thousand 
families  and  their  ministers  in  the  country  of  Sickelva 


The  Final  Blow  547 

abandoned  Socinianism,  and  became  Catholics.  Again, 
wonderful  conversions  were  made  in  Transylvania  and 
Hungary,  not  only  among  Protestants  but  among  the 
schismatical  Greeks.  Similar  triumphs  had  been 
achieved  in  Armenia  and  Syria  among  the  subjects  of 
the  Grand  Turk,  and  the  whole  peninsula  of  Italy 
under  the  eyes  of  the  Pope  was  in  a  transport  of  religious 
zeal.  The  peculiarly  interesting  feature  about  all  this 
was  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  members  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus.  But  that  did  not  check  the  progress  of  the 
anti-Christian  plot  of  the  Catholic  kings  of  Europe 
to  obliterate  from  the  face  of  the  earth  the  organization 
which  even  in  its  crippled  condition  and  in  the  very 
last  moments  of  its  existence  was  capable  of  such 
achievements.  Cardinal  Migazzi,  the  Archbishop  of 
Vienna,  called  the  Pope's  attention  to  this  fact,  but 
without  avail. 

Up  to  this  time,  Maria  Theresa  had  been  the  devoted 
friend  of  the  Society.  She  had  even  said  she  would 
never  cease  to  be  so,  but  yielding  to  the  influence  of 
her  son,  Joseph  II,  and  of  her  daughter,  the  Queen 
of  Naples,  she  consented  to  their  supression,  on  condition 
that  she  could  dispose  arbitrarily  of  their  property 
(Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV,  I,  362.)  The  illus- 
trious queen  displayed  great  worldly  prudence  in  with- 
drawing her  affections.  This  desertion  destroyed  the 
last  hope  that  the  Pope  had  cherished  of  putting  off 
the  Suppression.  Monino  returned  to  the  attack 
again  and  received  an  assurance  from  Clement  that 
the  document  of  suppression  would  be  ready  in  eight 
days,  and  copies  would  be  sent  to  the  Kings  of  Spain, 
France  and  Naples.  Meantime,  as  a  guarantee, 
he  began  the  work  in  his  own  States.  Under  all  sorts 
of  pretexts,  individuals  and  college  corporations  were 
haled  to  court;  and  official  visits  were  made  of  the 
various  establishments.  On  March  10,  1773,  Malvezzi, 


548  The  Jesuits 

the  Archbishop  of  Bologna,  applied  to  the  Pope  for 
11  permission  to  dissolve  the  novitiate,  if  it  would 
seem  proper  to  do  so."  If  you  think  well  of  it,  I 
shall  carry  that  measure  into  effect,  as  soon  as  I  arrive. 
I  also  judge  it  advisable  to  shut  up  St.  Lucia,  by 
dismissing  the  Jesuit  theologians  and  philosophers. 
In  doing  so,  Your  Holiness  will  be  dispensed  from  the 
trouble  of  investigating  and  will  thus  avoid  the  publicity 
of  any  notable  offence  which  an  examination  might 
reveal." 

There  were  two  difficulties  in  the  way,  however. 
The  people  objected  to  the  expulsion,  and  the  Jesuits 
refused  to  be  released  from  their  vows.  The  latter 
obstacle  was  thought  to  be  overcome  by  tearing  off 
the  cassocks  of  the  young  men  and  sending  them 
adrift  as  laymen,  and  when  the  rector,  Father  Belgrade, 
who  besides  being  a  theologian  was  one  of  the  foremost 
physicists  and  mathematicians  of  the  day,  and  had 
been  the  confessor  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Parma, 
informed  the  archbishop  that  dispensation  from  sub- 
stantial vows  must  come  from  the  Pope  and  from  no 
one  else,  that  did  not  stop  Malvezzi.  He  had  the 
rector  arrested  and  exiled;  and  with  the  help  of  a  band 
of  soldiers  expelled  the  scholastics  from  the  house. 
He  then  wrote  to  the  Pope  regretting  that  he  had 
not  proceeded  more  rapidly.  Besides  this,  Frascati 
was  taken  from  the  Jesuits  and  given  to  the  Cardinal 
of  York,  who  asked  for  it,  though  his  royal  pension 
had  made  him  already  immensely  wealthy.  Similar 
visitations  were  made  in  Ferrara  and  Montalto,  and 
the  looting  became  general. 

In  Poland,  as  we  learn  from  "  Les  Jesuites  de  la 
Russie  blanche,"  the  spoliation  had  started  even  before 
the  promulgation  of  the  edict.  Libraries  were  broken 
up  and  the  books  were  often  used  to  kindle  bonfires; 
the  silver  of  the  churches  was  melted  down  and  sold, 


The  Final  Blow  549 

and  medals  and  chains  from  statues  were  seen  on  the 
necks  of  abandoned  women.  Even  the  cattle  on  the 
farms  were  seized.  The  Jews  were  especially  conspicu- 
ous in  these  depredations. 

All  this  was  the  prelude  of  the  fatal  Brief,  which  was 
signed  on  July  21,  1773,  but  was  not  promulgated 
until  August  1 6  of  that  year.  Theiner  is  the  only 
author  who  gives  August  17  as  the  date.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  was  held  up  by  Austria  so  as  to  gain  time  to 
prevent  the  secular  clergy  from  seizing  the  property. 
The  preparation  of  the  Brief  was  conducted  with  the 
profoundest  secrecy.  Even  on  July  28,  the  French' 
Ambassador  wrote  to  D'Aiguillon:  "the  Pope  is 
doing  nothing  in  the  Jesuit  matter."  He  was  unaware 
that  not  only  was  the  Brief  already  signed  but  that  a 
Congregatio  de  rebus  extinctae  Societatis  (a  Committee 
on  the  affairs  of  the  Extinct  Society)  had  been  appointed, 
and  that  its  members  had  been  bound  under  pain  of 
excommunication  not  to  reveal  the  fact  to  any  one. 
However,  Bernis  found  it  out  on  the  nth,  and  com- 
plained that  he  had  not  been  consulted.  He  wrote  as 
follows:  "  Last  Friday,  the  Pope  summoned  Cardinals 
Marefoschi,  Casali,  Zelada,  Corsini  and  Caraffa,  and 
after  having  made  them  take  an  oath,  he  put  a  Brief 
in  their  hands,  which  constituted  them  members  of  a 
congregation  which  was  to  meet  every  Monday  and 
Thursday  to  discuss  whatever  concerned  the  Jesuit 
establishments,  their  benefices,  colleges,  seminaries, 
foundations,  and  such  matters.  It  held  its  first  meeting 
last  Monday.  Macedonio,  the  Pope's  nephew,  was 
the  secretary;  Alfani,  a  prelate,  was  the  assessor;  and 
Fathers  Mamachi,  a  Dominican,  and  de  Casal,  a 
Recollect,  were  consulting  theologians.  The  last  two 
mentioned  are  men  of  repute." 

'  The   1 6th  day  of  August   1773,  the  day  of  sad 
memories,"  writes  de  Ravignan,  "  arrived.     Towards 


550  The  Jesuits 

nine  at  night,  Macedonio  went  to  the  Gesu  and 
officially  notified  the  General  of  the  Brief  that  sup- 
pressed the  Society  throughout  the  world.  He  was 
accompanied  by  soldiers  and  officers  of  the  police 
to  keep  order,  though  no  one  dreamed  of  creating  any 
trouble.  At  the  same  hour,  also  by  command  of  the 
Pope,  other  distinguished  prelates  and  ecclesiastics 
gave  notice  of  the  Brief  to  the  various  Jesuit  rectors 
in  Rome.  They  also  were  accompanied  by  soldiers 
and  notaries.  Seals  were  put  on  the  archives,  the 
accounts,  the  offices  of  the  treasurers  and  the  doors 
of  the  sacristies.  The  Jesuits  were  suspended  from 
all  ecclesiastical  functions  such  as  confessions  and 
preaching,  and  they  were  forbidden,  for  the  time 
being,  to  leave  their  houses.  The  Father  General  and 
his  assistants  were  carried  off  to  jail."  "  Such,"  said 
Schoell  (xliv,  84),  "was  the  end  of  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  institutions  that  perhaps  ever  existed. 
The  Order  of  the  Jesuits  was  divided  into  five  nations, 
Italian,  Portuguese,  Spanish,  French  and  German, 
each  one  of  which  had  a  representative  living  with  the 
General.  In  1750  the  organization  comprised  39 
provinces,  had  84  professed  houses,  which  were  resi- 
dences where  the  most  experienced  members  worked 
unceasingly  for  the  Order  without  being  distracted 
by  public  instruction.  There  were  679  colleges,  61 
novitiates,  176  seminaries,  335  residences,  and  273 
missions.  There  were  22,589  members  of  whom 
1 1 , 2  93  were  priests. ' ' 

This  official  act  of  the  Pope  really  added  very  little 
to  the  temporal  injury  already  done  to  the  Order  in 
Spain,  France  and  Portugal  where  they  had  already 
been  robbed  of  everything.  But  to  be  regarded  as 
reprobates  by  the  Pope  and  branded  as  disturbers 
of  the  peace  of  the  Church  was  a  suffering  with  which 
all  they  had  hitherto  undergone  bore  no  comparison. 


The  Final  Blow  551 

Nevertheless,  they  uttered  no  protest.  They  sub- 
mitted absolutely  and  died  without  a  murmur,  and 
in  this  silence  they  were  true  to  their  lifelong  training, 
for  loyalty  to  the  See  of  Peter  had  always  been  the 
distinctive  mark  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  from  the 
moment  that  Ignatius  Loyola  knelt  at  the  feet  of 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  for  his  approval  and  blessing. 
When  the  blow  fell,  the  Society  was  found  to  be  faith- 
ful. If  it  had  during  its  lifetime  achieved  something 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls;  if  it 
had  been  constantly  appealed  to  for  the  most  dangerous 
missions  and  had  accepted  them  with  enthusiasm; 
if  it  had  poured  out  its  blood  lavishly  for  the  Faith; 
if  it  had  given  many  glorious  saints  to  the  Church, 
now,  in  the  last  terrible  crisis  which  preceded  the 
French  Revolution  and  perhaps  precipitated  it,  when 
the  ruler  of  the  Militant  Church  judged  that  by  sacri- 
ficing one  of  his  legions  he  could  hold  back  the  foe, 
the  Society  of  Jesus  on  being  chosen  did  not  hesitate; 
it  obeyed,  and  it  was  cut  to  pieces.  Not  a  word  came 
from  the  heroic  band  to  discuss  the  wisdom  or  the 
unwisdom  of  the  act.  Others  protested  but  not  they. 
Those  who  condemned  Clement  XIV  were  not  Jesuits, 
though  their  enemies  said  they  were.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Jesuits  defended  and  eulogized  him  and  some  of 
them  even  maintained  that  in  the  terrible  circum- 
stances in  which  he  found  himself,  he  could  not  have 
done  otherwise.  The  Suppression  gave  them  the 
chance,  which  they  did  not  miss,  to  prove  to  the  world 
the  solidity  of  virtue  that  reigned  throughout  the 
Order,  and  to  show  that  their  doctrine  of  "  blind 
obedience  "  was  not  a  matter  of  mere  words,  but  an 
achievable  and  an  achieved  virtue.  They  would  have 
stultified  themselves  had  they  halted  when  the  supreme 
test  was  asked  for,  and  so  they  died  to  uphold  the 
judgment  of  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  in  similar 


552  The  Jesuits 

circumstances  would  do  it  again.  They  had  preached 
sermons  in  every  part  of  the  world,  but  never  one  like 
this.  Nor  was  it  a  sublime  act  such  as  some  individual 
saints  might  have  performed.  It  was  the  act  of  the 
whole  Society  of  Jesus. 

Silent  themselves,  they  did  their  best  to  persuade 
others  to  refrain  from  all  criticism.  One  example 
will  suffice.  It  was  after  the  Pope's  death  when  the 
ex- Jesuits  at  Fribourg  held  a  funeral  service  in  their 
collegiate  Church  of  St.  Nicholas.  The  whole  city 
was  present,  and  the  preacher,  Father  Matzel,  amid 
the  sobs  of  the  congregation  uttered  these  words: 
"Friends!  beloved  Friends  of  our  former  Society! 
whoever  and  wherever  you  may  be!  If  ever  we  have 
had  the  happiness  to  be  of  help  and  comfort  to  you 
by  our  labor  in  city  or  country;  if  ever  we  have  con- 
tributed anything  to  the  cause  of  Christianity  in 
preaching  the  word  of  God  or  catechising  or  instructing 
youth,  or  laboring  in  hospitals  or  prisons,  or  writing 
edifying  books  now,  on  this  occasion,  although  in  our 
present  distress  we  have  many  favors  to  ask  of  you, 
there  is  one  we  ask  above  all  and  we  entreat  and  implore 
you  to  grant  it.  It  is  never  to  speak  a  word  that  would 
be  harsh  or  bitter  or  disrespectful  to  the  memory  of 
Clement  XIV,  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church  of 
Christ." 

The  famous  Brief  is  designated  by  its  first  words, 
Dominus  ac  Redemptor.  Its  general  tenor  is  as  follows : 
It  begins  by  enumerating  the  various  religious  orders 
which,  in  course  of  time,  had  been  suppressed  by 
successive  Popes,  and  it  then  gives  a  list  of  the  privileges 
accorded  to  the  Society  by  the  Holy  See,  but  it  notes 
that  "  from  its  very  cradle  "  there  were  internal  and 
external  disagreements  and  dissensions  and  jealousies, 
as  well  as  opposition  to  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
authority,  chiefly  because  of  the  excessive  privileges  that 


The  Final  Blow  553 

had  been  granted  to  it  by  the  different  Sovereign  Pon- 
tiffs. Its  moral  and  dogmatic  theology  also  gave  rise 
to  considerable  discussion,  and  it  has  frequently  been 
accused  of  too  great  avidity  in  the  acquisition  of 
earthly  goods.  The  Pontiff  merely  declares  that  such 
"  charges  "  were  made  against  the  Society;  he,  in  no 
place,  admits  that  the  "  charges  "  were  based  on  truth. 
These  accusations,  he  continues,  caused  much  chagrin, 
to  the  Holy  See,  and  afforded  a  motive  for  several 
sovereigns  of  Europe  to  range  themselves  in  opposition 
to  the  Society;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  new  con- 
firmation of  the  Institute  was  obtained  from  Pope 
Paul  IV  of  happy  memory.  That,  however,  did  not 
succeed  in  putting  an  end  to  the  disputes  with  the 
ordinaries  or  with  other  religious  orders  on  many 
points,  and  notably  with  regard  to  certain  ceremonies 
which  the  Holy  See  proscribed  as  scandalous  in  doc- 
trine, and  subversive  of  morality;  nor  did  it  avail  to 
quell  the  tumult  which  ultimately  led  to  the  expulsion 
of  the  Society  from  Portugal,  France,  Spain  and  the 
Two  Sicilies,  and  induced  the  kings  of  those  countries 
to  ask  Clement  XIII  for  its  complete  suppression. 
"  Hence,  finding  that  the  Society  of  Jesus  can  no  longer 
produce  the  abundant  fruits  for  which  it  was  instituted, 
and  for  which  it  was  approved  by  so  many  Popes,  and 
rewarded  by  so  many  privileges,  we  now  abolish  and 
suppress  it.  But  as  the  purpose  which  we  have  set  for 
ourselves  and  are  eager  to  achieve  is  the  general  good 
of  the  Church  and  the  tranquillity  of  the  people,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  to  give  help  and  consolation  to  each 
of  the  members  of  this  Society,  all  of  whom  we  tenderly 
cherish  in  the  Lord,  we  ordain  as  follows  with  regard 
to  them."  He  then  explains  the  various  ways  in 
which  each  section  of  the  Society  is  to  be  dealt  with. 
Such  in  general  is  the  substance  of  this  very  long 
Brief.  In  it,  however,  there  is  not  one  word  about  the 


554  The  Jesuits 

decadence  of  the  Society  in  its  morality  or  its  theology. 
The  Pontiff  merely  says  that  many  have  "  charged  " 
them  with  such  offenses.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that  "  he  tenderly  loved  all  of  the  individuals  who 
composed  the  Society."  The  real  purpose  of  it  was 
to  bring  peace  to  the  Church.  Cahours  in  his  "  Des 
Jesuites  par  un  Jesuite,"  (II,  p.  278)  says,  "  Every 
judge  who  passes  a  sentence  affirms  two  things:  the 
existence  of  a  crime  and  the  fitness  of  the  penalty. 
Clement  XIV  pronounces  on  the  second,  but  says  noth- 
ing of  the  first.  Hence  the  sentence  is  not  something 
exacted  by  justice,  but  is  merely  an  administrative 
measure  called  for  by  the  embarrassment  of  the 
moment." 

Was  it  legitimate?     Yes;  for  the  Holy  See  has  a 
right  to  suppress  what  it  has  created. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE    INSTRUMENT 

Summary  of  the  Brief  of  Suppression  and  its  Supplementary 
Document. 

THE  Brief  of  Clement  XIV  which  suppressed  the 
Society  begins  by  enumerating  the  various  religious 
orders  which  have  been  treated  in  a  similar  manner 
at  different  periods  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  but 
it  omits  to  note  that  their  extinction  occurred  only 
after  a  juridical  examination.  Thus,  for  instance, 
when  Clement  V  suppressed  the  Knights  Templars 
in  1321,  he  first  ordered  all  the  bishops  of  the  world  to 
summon  the  Knights  who  had  chapters  in  their  dioceses ; 
to  subject  them  to  a  regular  trial  and  then  to  forward  a 
report  of  their  proceedings  to  Rome.  When  this  was 
done  a  general  council  was  convened  at  Vienne  in 
Dauphine  to  go  over  the  whole  matter  and  then 
submit  its  decision  to  the  Pope.  The  council  brought 
in  a  favorable  verdict  by  a  majority  vote,  although 
the  Knights  were  very  poorly  defended,  but  the  Pope, 
terrorized  by  Philip  the  Fair,  ordered  the  dissolution 
of  the  Order.  In  the  case  of  the  Society  there  was  a 
dissolution  but  no  triaL 

After  recounting  these  facts,  the  Pontiff  says: 
"  Having  before  my  eyes  these  and  other  examples  of 
Orders  suppressed  by  the  Church  and  being  most 
eager  to  proceed  with  perfect  confidence  in  carrying 
out  the  purpose  which  shall  be  referred  to  later,  we 
have  left  nothing  undone  to  make  ourselves  acquainted 
with  the  origin,  progress  and  actual  condition  of  the 
religious  order  commonly  known  as  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  We  have  seen  that  it  was  established  by  its 
Holy  Founder  for  the  salvation  of  souls,  the  conver- 

555 


556  The  Jesuits 

sion  of  heretics  and  especially  of  the  heathen,  and  also 
for  the  increase  of  piety  and  religion.  To  accomplish 
these  purposes  its  members  were  bound  by  a  very 
strict  vow  of  evangelical  poverty  both  in  common  and 
individually,  with  the  exception  of  its  houses  of  study 
or  colleges  which  are  allowed  to  possess  certain  revenues, 
but  in  such  wise  that  they  could  not  be  diverted  or 
applied  to  the  use  of  this  Society. 

"  In  consequence  of  these  statutes  and  of  others 
equally  wise,  our  predecessor  Paul  III  approved  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  by  his  Bull  of  September  27,  1540, 
and  allowed  it  to  draw  up  rules  and  statutes  to  ensure 
its  peace,  its  existence  and  its  government ;  and  although 
he  had  restricted  this  Society  to  sixty  members,  yet 
by  another  Bull  dated  February  28,  1543,  he  per- 
mitted the  superiors  to  receive  all  who  appeared  to 
possess  the  proper  qualifications  for  the  work  proposed. 
Subsequently,  the  same  Pontiff  by  a  Brief  of  November 
15,  1549,  accorded  very  great  privileges  to  this  Society 
and  gave  its  Generals  the  power  of  accepting  twenty 
priests  as  spiritual  coadjutors  and  of  conferring  on 
them  the  same  privileges,  the  same  favor  and  the 
same  authority  as  the  Professed.  His  wish  was  and 
he  so  ordained  that  there  should  be  no  limit  or  restric- 
tion put  on  the  number  of  those  whom  the  General 
should  judge  worthy  of  being  so  received.  Further- 
more, the  Society  itself,  all  its  members  and  their 
possessions  were  entirely  withdrawn  from  all  superior- 
ship,  control  and  correction  of  bishops  and  taken  under 
the  protection  of  the  Holy  See. 

"  Others  of  our  predecessors  have  exhibited  the 
same  munificent  liberality  to  this  order.  In  effect 
Julius  III,  Paul  IV,  Paul  V,  Gregory  XIII,  Sixtus  V, 
Gregory  XIV,  Clement  VIII  and  other  Popes  have 
either  confirmed  or  augmented,  or  more  distinctly 
defined  and  determined  the  privileges  already  conferred 


The  Instrument  557 

on  these  religious.  Nevertheless,  the  tenor  and  even 
the  terms  of  these  Apostolic  Constitutions  show  that 
even  at  its  inception  the  Society  saw  spring  up  within 
it  various  germs  of  discord  and  jealousies,  which  not 
only  divided  the  members,  but  prompted  them  to 
exalt  themselves  above  other  religious  orders,  the 
secular  clergy,  the  universities,  colleges,  public  schools 
and  even  the  sovereigns  who  had  admitted  and  welcomed 
them  in  their  realms.  These  troubles  and  dissensions 
were  sometimes  caused  by  the  character  of  the  Society's 
vows,  by  its  power  to  admit  novices  to  the  vows,  to 
dismiss  from  the  Society,  to  present  its  subjects  for 
ordination  without  any  ecclesiastical  title  and  without 
having  made  solemn  vows.  Moreover,  it  was  in 
conflict  with  the  decisions  of  the  Council  of  Trent 
and  of  Pius  V,  our  predecessor,  both  with  regard 
to  the  absolute  power  arrogated  by  the  General,  as 
well  as  in  other  articles  which  not  only  relate  to  the 
government  of  the  Society,  but  also  on  different  points 
of  doctrine,  and  in  the  exemptions  and  privileges 
which  the  ordinaries  and  other  dignitaries  both 
ecclesiastical  and  secular  claim  to  be  an  invasion  of 
their  jurisdiction  and  their  rights.  In  brief,  there  is 
scarcely  any  kind  of  a  grave  accusation  that  has  not 
been  brought  against  this  Society,  and  in  consequence, 
the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  Christendom  has  been 
for  a  long  time  disturbed. 

"  Numberless  complaints  backed  by  the  authority 
of  kings  and  rulers  have  been  urged  against  these 
religious  at  the  tribunals  of  Paul  IV,  Pius  V  and  Sixtus 
V.  Thus,  Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  laid  before  Sixtus 
V  not  only  the  urgent  and  grave  personal  reasons 
which  prompted  his  action  in  this  matter,  but  also  the 
protest  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  against  the  excessive 
privileges  of  the  Society.  His  majesty  also  complained 
of  the  Society's  form  of  government,  and  of  points  in 


558  The  Jesuits 

the  Institution  which  were  disputed  by  some  of  the 
members  of  the  Society  who  were  conspicuous  for 
their  knowledge  and  piety,  and  he  asked  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  to  name  a  commission  for  an  Apostolic  visitation 
of  the  Society. 

"  As  the  zealous  demands  of  Philip  seemed  to  be 
based  on  justice  and  equity,  Sixtus  V  appointed  as 
visitor  Apostolic  a  bishop  generally  recognized  for 
his  prudence,  virtue  and  intellectual  gifts.  A  congre- 
gation of  cardinals  was  also  instituted  to  dispose  of  the 
matter,  but  the  premature  death  of  Sixtus  prevented 
any  action.  On  the  other  hand,  the  first  act  of  Gregory 
XIV  on  his  accession  to  the  Chair  of  Peter  was  to 
give  by  his  Bull  of  June  28,  1591,  the  most  extensive 
approval  of  the  Institute.  He  confirmed  and  ratified 
all  the  privileges  accorded  by  his  predecessors,  and 
especially  that  of  dismissal  from  the  Order  without 
juridical  procedure,  that  is  to  say  without  having 
taken  any  previous  information,  without  drawing  up 
any  indictment,  without  observing  any  legal  process, 
or  allowing  any  delay,  even  the  most  essential,  but 
solely  on  the  inspection  of  the  truth  of  the  fact  and 
without  regard  to  the  fault  or  whether  it  or  the 
attendant  circumstances  sufficiently  justified  the  expul- 
sion of  the  person  involved. 

"  Moreover,  Pope  Gregory  absolutely  forbade  under 
pain  of  excommunication  ipso  facto,  any  direct  or 
indirect  attack  on  the  institute,  the  constitutions, 
or  the  decrees  of  the  Society,  or  any  attempt  to  change 
them,  although  he  permitted  an  appeal  to  himself  or 
his  successors,  either  directly  or  through  the  legates 
and  nuncios  of  the  Holy  See,  and  also  the  right  to 
represent  whatever  one  might  think  should  be  added, 
modified  or  retrenched. 

"  However,  all  these  precautions  did  not  avail  to 
silence  the  clamorous  complaints  against  the  Society. 


The  Instrument  559 

On  the  contrary,  strife  arose  everywhere  about  the 
doctrines  of  the  Order,  which  many  maintained  were 
totally  opposed  to  the  orthodox  faith  and  sound 
morality.  The  Society  itself  was  torn  by  internal 
dissensions  while  this  external  warfare  was  going  on. 
It  was  also  everywhere  reproached  with  too  much 
avidity  and  eagerness  for  earthly  goods  and  this 
complaint  caused  the  Holy  See  much  pain  and  exasper- 
ated many  rulers  of  nations  against  the  Society. 
Hence,  to  strengthen  themselves  on  that  point  these 
religious,  wishing  to  obtain  from  Paul  V  of  happy 
memory  a  new  confirmation  of  their  Institute  and  their 
privileges,  were  compelled  to  ask  for  a  ratification 
of  some  decrees  published  in  the  fifth  general  congre- 
gation and  inserted  word  for  word  in  his  Bull  of 
September  14,  1606.  These  decrees  expressly  declared 
that  the  Society  assembled  in  general  congregation 
had  been  compelled  both  by  the  troubles  and  enmities 
among  the  members,  and  by  the  charges  from  without, 
to  formulate  the  following  statute  :- 

'  Our  Society  which  has  been  raised  up  by  God  for 
the  propagation  of  the  Faith  and  the  salvation  of 
souls,  is  enabled  by  the  proper  functions  of  its  Institute 
which  are  the  arms  of  the  spirit  to  attain  under  the 
standard  of  the  Cross  the  end  it  proposes,  with  edifica- 
tion to  the  neighbor  and  usefulness  to  the  Church. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  would  do  harm  and  expose 
itself  to  the  greatest  danger  if  it  meddled  in  affairs  of 
the  world  and  especially  with  what  concerns  the  politics 
and  government  of  States.  But,  as  in  these  unfortunate 
times  our  Order,  perhaps  because  of  the  ambition  or 
indiscreet  zeal  of  some  of  its  members,  is  attacked 
in  different  parts  of  the  world  and  is  complained  of  to 
certain  sovereigns  whose  consideration  and  affection  we 
have  been  bidden  by  St.  Ignatius  to  preserve  so  that 
we  may  be  more  acceptable  to  God,  and  as,  besides, 


560  The  Jesuits 

the  good  odor  of  Jesus  Christ  is  necessary  to  produce 
fruits  of  salvation,  this  congregation  is  of  the  opinion 
that  it  is  incumbent  upon  all  to  avoid  as  far  as  possible 
even  the  appearance  of  evil,  and  thus  to  obviate  the 
accusations  that  are  based  on  unjust  suspicions.  Hence, 
the  present  decree  forbids  all  under  the  most  rigorous 
penalties  to  concern  themselves  in  any  way  with 
public  affairs,  even  when  invited  to  do  so  or  when  for 
some  reason  they  may  seem  to  be  indispensable.  They 
are  not  to  depart  from  the  Institute  of  the  Society  no 
matter  how  entreated  or  solicited,  and  the  definitors 
are  to  lay  down  rules  and  to  prescribe  the  means  best 
calculated  to  remedy  abuses  in  cases  which  may 
present  themselves.' 

"  We  have  observed  with  bitter  grief  that  these 
remedies  and  many  others  subsequently  employed 
failed  to  put  an  end  to  the  troubles,  complaints  and 
accusations  against  the  Society,  and  that  Urban  VIII, 
Clement  IX,  Clement  X,  Clement  XI,  Clement  XII, 
Alexander  VII,  Alexander  VIII,  Innocent  X,  Innocent 
XI,  Innocent  XII,  Innocent  XIII,  and  Benedict  XIV 
were  unable  to  give  the  Church  peace.  The  constitu- 
tions which  were  drawn  up  with  regard  to  secular 
affairs  with  which  the  Society  should  not  concern 
itself,  whether  outside  of  these  missions  or  on  account 
of  them,  failed  to  have  any  result.  Nor  did  they  put 
an  end  to  the  serious  quarrels  and  dissensions  caused 
by  members  of  the  Society  with  the  ordinaries  and 
religious  orders,  or  about  places  consecrated  to  piety, 
and  also  with  communities  of  every  kind  in  Europe, 
Asia  and  America;  all  of  which  caused  great  scandal 
and  loss  of  souls.  The  same  was  true  with  regard  to 
the  practice  and  interpretation  of  certain  pagan 
ceremonies  which  were  tolerated  and  permitted  in 
many  places  while  those  approved  of  by  the  Universal 
Church  were  put  aside.  Then,  too,  there  was  the  use 


The  Instrument  561 

and  interpretation  of  maxims  which  the  Holy  See 
deemed  to  be  scandalous  and  evidently  harmful  to 
morality.  Finally,  there  were  other  things  of  great 
moment  and  of  absolute  necessity  for  the  preservation 
of  the  dogmas  of  the  Christian  religion  in  its  purity 
and  integrity  which  in  our  own  and  preceding  centuries 
led  to  abuses  and  great  evils  such  as  the  troubles  and 
seditions  in  Catholic  states,  and  even  persecutions  of 
the  Church  in  some  provinces  of  Asia  and  Europe. 

"  All  of  our  predecessors  have  been  sorely  afflicted 
by  these  things,  among  others  Innocent  XI  of  pious 
memory,  who  forbade  the  habit  to  be  given  to  novices ; 
Innocent  XIII,  who  was  obliged  to  utter  the  same 
threat;  and,  finally,  Benedict  XIV,  who  ordered  a 
visitation  of  the  houses  and  colleges  of  our  dear  son 
in  Christ,  the  most  faithful  King  of  Portugal  and  the 
Algarves.  But  the  Holy  See  derived  no  consolation  from 
all  this;  nor  was  the  Society  helped;  nor  did  Christianity 
secure  any  advantage  from  the  last  letter,  which  had 
been  rather  extorted  than  obtained  from  our  immediate 
predecessor  Clement  XIII  (to  borrow  the  expression 
employed  by  Gregory  X  in  the  Ecumenical  Council 
of  Lyons.) 

"  After  so  many  terrible  shocks,  storms  and  tempests, 
the  truly  faithful  hope  to  see  the  day  dawn  which  will 
bring  peace  and  calm.  But  under  the  pontificate 
of  our  predecessor  Clement  XIII,  the  times  grew  more 
stormy.  Indeed,  the  clamors  against  the  Society 
augmented  daily  and  in  some  places  there  were  troubles, 
dissensions,  dangerous  strifes  and  even  scandals  which, 
after  completely  shattering  Christian  charity,  lighted  in 
the  hearts  of  the  faithful,  party  spirit,  hatred  and 
enmity.  The  danger  increased  to  such  a  degree  that 
even  those  whose  piety  and  well-known  hereditary 
devotion  to  the  Society,  namely  our  very  dear  sons  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Kings  of  France,  Spain,  Portugal  and 
36 


562  The  Jesuits 

the  Two  Sicilies,  were  forced  to  banish  from  their  king- 
doms, states  and  provinces  all  the  religious  of  this 
Order;  being  persuaded  that  this  extreme  measure  was 
the  only  means  of  remedying  so  many  evils  and  putting 
an  end  to  the  contentions  and  strife  that  were  tearing 
the  bosom  of  Mother  Church. 

"  But  these  same  kings,  our  very  dear  sons  in  Jesus 
Christ,  thought  that  this  remedy  could  not  be  lasting 
in  its  effects  or  could  avail  to  tranquillize  Christendom 
unless  the  Society  was  altogether  abolished  and  sup- 
pressed. Hence,  they  made  known  to  Clement  XIII 
their  desire  in  this  matter  and  asked  him  with  one 
accord  and  with  all  the  authority  they  possessed, 
adding  also  their  prayers  and  entreaties  to  bring  about 
in  that  way  the  perpetual  tranquillity  of  their  subjects 
and  the  general  good  of  the  Church.  But  the  sudden 
death  of  that  Pontiff  checked  all  progress  in  the 
matter.  Hardly,  however,  had  we,  by  the  mercy 
of  God,  been  elevated  to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter,  than 
the  same  prayers  were  addressed  to  us,  the  same 
insistent  demands  were  made  and  a  great  number  of 
bishops  and  other  personages  illustrious  by  their 
learning,  dignity  and  virtue  united  their  supplications 
to  this  request. 

"  Wishing,  however,  to  take  the  surest  course  in 
such  a  grave  and  important  matter,  we  believed  we 
needed  a  much  longer  time  to  consider  it,  not  only 
for  the  purpose  of  making  the  most  exact  examination 
possible  and  then  to  deliberate  upon  the  most  prudent 
methods  to  be  adopted  and  also  to  obtain  from  the 
Father  of  Light  His  especial  help  and  assistance,  we 
offered  our  most  earnest  prayers,  mourning  and  grieving 
over  what  was  before  us,  and  we  entreated  the  faithful 
to  come  to  our  aid  by  their  prayers  and  good  works. 
We  have  especially  thought  it  advisable  to  find  out 
upon  what  basis  this  widespread  feeling  rested  with  re- 


The  Instrument  563 

gard  to  the  Society,  which  had  been  confirmed  and  ap- 
proved in  the  most  solemn  manner  by  the  Council  of 
Trent.  We  discovered  that  the  council  mentions  the 
Order  only  to  exempt  it  from  the  general  decree  passed 
for  other  Orders.  The  Jesuit  novices  were  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  profession  if  judged  worthy,  or  they  were  to  be 
dismissed  from  the  Society.  Hence  the  council  (Session 
25,  c.  xvi,  de  reg.)  declared  that  it  wished  to  make  no 
innovation  nor  to  prevent  these  religious  from  serving 
God  and  the  Church  in  accordance  with  their  pious 
Institute  which  had  been  approved  by  the  Church. 
"  Wherefore,  after  having  made  use  of  so  many 
necessary  means,  and  aided  as  we  think  by  the  presence 
and  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and,  moreover, 
compelled  by  the  duty  of  our  office  which  essentially 
obliges  us  to  procure,  maintain  and  strengthen  with 
all  our  power,  the  repose  and  tranquillity  of  Christen- 
dom, and  to  root  out  entirely  what  could  cause  the 
slightest  harm;  and,  moreover,  having  recognized 
that  the  Society  of  Jesus  could  no  longer  produce  the 
abundant  fruit  and  the  great  good  for  which  it  was 
instituted  and  approved  by  so  many  Popes,  our  prede- 
cessors, who  adorned  it  with  so  many  most  admirable 
privileges,  and  seeing  that  it  was  almost  and,  indeed, 
absolutely  impossible  for  the  Church  to  enjoy  a  true 
and  solid  peace  while  this  Order  existed,  being  bound 
as  we  are  by  so  many  powerful  considerations  and 
compelled  by  other  motives  which  the  laws  of  prudence 
and  the  wise  administration  of  the  Church  suggest 
but  which  we  keep  in  the  depths  of  our  heart :  Following 
in  the  footsteps  of  our  predecessors  and  especially 
of  Gregory  X  at  the  Council  of  Lyons,  since  the  cases 
are  identical,  we  do,  hereby,  after  a  mature  examination, 
and  of  our  certain  knowledge,  and  by  the  plenitude  of 
our  Apostolic  power,  suppress  and  abolish  the  Society 
of  Jesus.  We  nullify  and  abrogate  all  and  each  of 


564  The  Jesuits 

its  offices,  functions,  administrations,  houses,  schools, 
colleges,  retreats,  refuges  and  other  establishments 
which  belong  to  it  in  any  manner  whatever,  and  in 
every  province,  kingdom  or  state  in  which  it  may 
be  found.  We  do  the  same  for  its  statutes,  customs, 
usages,  decrees,  constitutions,  even  those  confirmed  by 
the  oath  and  by  the  approbation  of  the  Holy  See  or 
otherwise,  as  well  as  all  and  each  of  its  indults,  both 
general  and  particular  whose  tenor  we  wish  to  be  regarded 
as  fully  and  sufficiently  set  forth  by  these  present  letters, 
as  if  they  were  here  inserted  word  for  word ;  notwith- 
standing any  clause  or  formula  to  the  contrary,  no 
matter  upon  what  decrees  or  obligations  they  may  be 
based.  Hence,  we  declare  as  forever  broken  and 
entirely  extinct  all  authority,  spiritual  or  temporal, 
of  the  General,  provincials,  visitors  and  other  superiors 
of  this  Society,  and  we  transfer  absolutely  and  without 
restriction  this  same  authority  and  this  same  juris- 
diction to  the  ordinaries  of  the  places  where  the  afore- 
said are,  according  to  the  case  or  persons,  in  the  form 
and  under  the  conditions  which  we  shall  explain  here- 
after; forbidding,  as  we  do  by  these  presents  forbid, 
that  any  one  should  be  received  into  this  Society  or 
admitted  to  the  novitiate  or  invested  with  the  habit. 
We  also  forbid  any  of  those  who  have  already  been 
received  to  pronounce  the  simple  or  solemn  vows, 
under  pain  of  nullity  either  of  their  admission  or  pro- 
fession and  under  other  penalties  as  we  may  see  fit. 
Moreover,  we  wish,  ordain  and  enjoin  that  those  who 
are  at  present  novices,  should  be  immediately,  instantly 
and  effectually  dismissed,  and  we  forbid  those  who  have 
not  made  solemn  vows  and  who  have  not  yet  been 
admitted  to  the  priesthood  to  be  promoted  to  either 
under  the  title  or  pretext  of  their  profession  or  in  virtue 
of  any  privileges  accorded  to  the  Society  and  in  con- 
travention of  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 


The  Instrument  565 

"  But  as  the  object  we  have  in  view  and  which  we 
are  most  eager  to  attain  is  to  watch  over  the  general 
good  of  the  Church  and  the  peace  of  the  nations,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  help  and  console  each  one  of  the 
members  of  this  Society  whom  we  tenderly  cherish 
in  the  Lord,  so  that,  freed  at  last  from  all  the  quarrels 
and  disputes  and  annoyances  in  which  they  have 
until  now  been  engaged,  they  may  cultivate  with 
more  fruit  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  and  labor  with 
more  success  for  the  salvation  of  souls,  we  decree  and 
ordain  that  the  members  of  this  Society  who  have 
made  only  simple  vows  and  who  are  not  yet  in  Holy 
Orders  shall  depart  from  their  houses  and  colleges 
freed  from  their  vows,  and  that  they  are  free  to  embrace 
whatever  state  they  judge  most  conformable  to  their 
vocation,  their  strength  and  their  conscience.  The 
ordinary  of  the  place  will  fix  the  time  which  may  be 
deemed  sufficient  to  procure  an  employment  or  an 
occupation,  without,  however,  extending  it  beyond  a 
year,  just  as  in  the  Society  they  would  be  dismissed 
without  any  other  reason  than  because  the  prudence  of 
the  superior  so  judges,  and  that  without  any  previous 
citation  or  juridical  proof. 

"  We  allow  those  in  Holy  Orders  either  to  leave 
their  houses  and  colleges  and  enter  some  religious 
order  approved  by  the  Holy  See,  in  which  case  they 
must  pass  the  probation  prescribed  by  the  Council  of 
Trent,  if  they  have  only  taken  simple  vows,  if  they 
have  taken  solemn  vows,  the  time  of  their  probation 
will  be  six  months  in  virtue  of  a  dispensation  which 
we  give  to  that  effect;  or  they  may  remain  in  the 
world  as  secular  priests  or  clerics,  and  in  that  case 
they  shall  be  entirely  subject  to  the  authority  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  ordinary  of  the  place  in  which  they 
reside.  We  ordain,  also,  that  a  suitable  pension  shall 
be  assigned  to  those  who  remain  in  the  world,  until 


566  The  Jesuits 

such  time  as  they  shall  be  otherwise  provided  for. 
This  pension  shall  be  derived  from  the  funds  of  the 
house  where  they  formerly  lived,  due  consideration, 
however,  being  had  to  the  revenues  and  the  indebted- 
ness of  such  houses. 

"  The  professed  who  are  already  in  Holy  Orders  and 
who  fear  they  may  not  be  able  to  live  respectably  on 
account  of  the  smallness  of  their  pension,  either 
because  they  can  find  no  other  refuge  or  are  very  old 
and  infirm,  may  live  in  their  former  houses  on  condition 
that  they  shall  have  no  share  in  its  administration, 
that  they  dress  like  secular  priests  and  be  entirely 
subject  to  the  bishop  of  the  place.  We  expressly 
forbid  them  to  supply  anyone's  place  or  to  acquire  any 
house  or  place  in  the  future,  or,  as  the  Council  of  Lyons 
decrees,  to  alienate  the  houses,  goods  or  places  which 
they  actually  possess.  They  may,  nevertheless,  meet 
in  one  or  more  houses,  in  such  a  manner  that  such 
houses  may  be  available  if  needed  for  pious  purposes, 
as  may  appear  most  in  conformity,  in  time  and  place, 
with  the  Holy  Canons  and  the  will  of  the  founders, 
and  also  more  conducive  to  the  growth  of  religion, 
the  salvation  of  souls  and  public  utility.  Moreover, 
some  one  of  the  secular  clergy,  commendable  for  his 
prudence  and  virtuous  life,  must  appear  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  such  houses,  as  the  name  of  the  Society  is 
now  totally  suppressed  and  abolished. 

"  We  declare,  also,  that  those  who  have  been  already 
expelled  from  any  country  whatever  are  included  in 
the  general  suppression  of  the  Order,  and  we  conse- 
quently decree  that  those  banished  Jesuits,  even  if 
they  are  in  Holy  Orders  and  have  not  entered  a  religious 
order,  shall  from  this  moment  belong  to  the  secular 
clergy  and  be  entirely  subject  to  the  ordinary  of  the 
place. 


The  Instrument  567 

"  If  the  ordinaries  recognize  in  those  who  in  virtue 
of  the  present  Brief  have  passed  from  the  Society  to 
the  state  of  secular  priests  necessary  knowledge  and 
correctness  of  life,  they  may  grant  or  refuse  them, 
as  they  choose,  the  permission  to  confess  and  preach, 
and  without  such  authorization  none  of  them  can 
exercise  such  functions.  However,  the  bishops  or 
ordinaries  will  never  grant  such  powers  as  are  conceded 
to  those  not  of  the  diocese,  if  the  applicants  live  in 
houses  or  colleges  formerly  belonging  to  the  Society; 
and  therefore  we  forbid  such  persons  to  preach  or 
administer  the  sacraments,  as  Gregory  X,  our  prede- 
cessor prescribed  in  the  general  council  already  referred 
to.  We  lay  it  on  the  conscience  of  the  bishops  to  watch 
over  the  execution  of  all  this  and  we  command  them 
to  reflect  on  the  rigorous  account  they  will  have  one 
day  to  render  to  God  of  the  sheep  committed  to  their 
care  and  of  the  terrible  judgment  with  which  the 
Sovereign  Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead  menaces 
those  who  govern  others. 

"  Moreover,  if  among  those  who  were  members  of  the 
Society  there  are  any  who  were  charged  with  the 
instruction  of  youth  or  who  have  exercised  the  functions 
of  professors  in  colleges  and  schools,  we  warn  them 
that  they  are  absolutely  deposed  from  any  such 
direction,  administration  or  authority  and  that  they 
are  not  permitted  to  be  employed  in  any  such  work, 
except  as  long  as  there  is  a  reason  to  hope  for  some 
good  from  their  labors  and  as  long  as  they  appear  to 
keep  aloof  from  all  discussions  and  points  of  doctrine 
whose  laxity  and  futility  only  occasion  and  engender 
trouble  and  disastrous  contentions.  We  furthermore 
ordain  that  they  shall  be  forever  forbidden  to  exercise 
the  functions  aforesaid,  if  they  do  not  endeavor  to 
keep  peace  in  their  schools  and  with  others;  and  that 


568  The  Jesuits 

they  shall  be  discharged  from  the  schools  if  they  happen 
to  be  employed  in  them. 

"  As  regards  the  missions,  we  include  them  in 
everything  that  has  been  ordered  in  this  suppression, 
and  we  reserve  to  ourselves  to  take  measures  calculated 
to  procure  more  easily  and  with  greater  certainty  of 
results  the  conversion  of  the  heathens  and  the  cessation 
of  disputes. 

"  Therefore,  we  have  entirely  abolished  and  abro- 
gated all  the  privileges  and  statutes  of  this  Order  and 
we  declare  that  all  of  its  members  shall  as  soon  as  they 
have  left  their  houses  and  colleges  and  have  embraced 
the  state  of  secular  clerics,  be  considered  proper 
and  fit  to  obtain,  in  conformity  with  the  Holy  Canons 
and  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  all  sorts  of  benefices 
either  simple  or  with  the  care  of  souls  annexed;  and 
also  to  accept  offices,  dignities  and  pensions,  from 
which  in  accordance  with  the  Brief  of  Gregory  XIII  of 
September  10,  1584,  which  begins  with  the  words: 
1  Satis  superque,'  they  were  absolutely  excluded  as 
long  as  they  belonged  to  the  Society.  We  allow  them 
also  to  accept  compensations  for  celebrating  Mass, 
which  they  were  not  allowed  to  receive  as  Jesuits,  and 
to  enjoy  all  the  graces  and  favors  of  which  they  would 
have  always  been  deprived  as  long  as  they  were  Clerks 
Regular  of  the  Society.  We  abrogate  likewise  all 
permissions  they  may  have  obtained  from  the  General 
and  other  superiors,  in  virtue  of  the  privileges  accorded 
by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  such  as  leave  to  read  heretical 
books  and  others  prohibited  and  condemned  by  the 
Holy  See,  or  not  to  fast  or  abstain,  or  to  anticipate 
the  Divine  Office  or  anything,  in  fact,  of  that  nature. 
Under  the  severest  penalties  we  forbid  them  to  use 
such  privileges  in  the  future,  as  our  intention  is  to 
make  them  live  in  conformity  with  the  requirements 
of  the  common  law,  like  secular  priests. 


The  Instrument  569 

"  After  the  publication  of  the  Brief,  we  forbid 
anyone,  no  matter  who  he  may  be,  to  dare  to  suspend 
its  execution  even  under  color,  title  or  pretext  of  some 
demand,  appeal  or  declaration  or  discussion  of  doubt 
that  may  arise  or  under  any  other  pretext,  foreseen 
or  unforeseen;  for  we  wish  that  the  suppression  and 
cessation  of  the  whole  Society  as  well  as  of  all  of 
its  officers  should  have  their  full  and  entire  effect, 
at  the  moment,  and  instanteously,  and  in  the  form 
and  manner  in  which  we  have  described  above,  under 
pain  of  major  excommunication  incurred  ipso  facto 
by  a  single  act,  and  reserved  to  us  and  to  the  Popes, 
our  successors.  This  is  directed  against  anyone  who 
will  dare  to  place  the  least  obstacle,  impediment  or 
delay  in  the  execution  of  this  Brief.  We  order, 
likewise,  and  we  forbid  under  holy  obedience  all  and 
every  ecclesiastic  secular  and  regular,  whatever  be 
their  grade,  dignity,  quality  or  condition,  and  notably 
those  who  are  at  present  attached  to  the  Society  or 
were  in  the  past,  to  oppose  or  attack  this  suppression, . 
to  write  against  it,  even  to  speak  of  it,  or  of  its  causes 
or  motives,  or  of  the  extinct  Institute  itself,  its  rules, 
constitutions  or  discipline  or  of  anything  else,  relative 
to  this  affair,  without  the  express  permission  of  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff.  We  likewise  forbid  all  and  everyone 
under  pain  of  excommunication  reserved  to  us  and 
our  successors  to  dare  to  assail  either  in  secret  or  in 
public,  verbally  or  in  writing,  by  disputes,  injuries 
and  affronts  or  by  any  other  kind  of  contempt,  anyone, 
no  matter  who  he  may  be  and  least  of  all  those  who 
were  members  of  the  said  Order. 

"  We  exhort  all  Christian  princes  whose  attachment 
and  respect  for  the  Holy  See  we  know,  to  employ  all 
the  zeal,  care,  strength,  authority  and  power  which 
they  have  received  from  God  for  the  execution  of  this 
Brief,  in  order  to  protect  and  defend  the  Holy  Roman 


570  The  Jesuits 

Church,  to  adhere  to  all  the  articles  it  contains;  to 
issue  and  publish  similar  decrees  by  which  they  may 
more  carefully  watch  over  the  execution  of  this  our 
present  will  and  so  forestall  quarrelling,  strife  and 
dissensions  among  the  faithful. 

"  Finally,  we  exhort  all  Christians  and  we  implore 
them  by  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ  Our  Lord  to 
remember  that  they  have  the  same  Master,  Who  is  in 
heaven;  the  same  Savior,  Who  redeemed  them  at 
the  price  of  His  blood ;  that  they  have  all  been  regener- 
ated by  the  grace  of  Baptism;  that  they  have  been  all 
made  sons  of  God  and  co-heirs  of  Christ;  and  are 
nourished  by  the  same  bread  of  the  Divine  word, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Church;  that  they  are  one  body  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  are  members  of  each  other;  and 
consequently,  it  is  necessary  that  being  united  by 
the  bonds  of  charity  they  should  live  in  peace  with  all 
men,  as  their  only  duty  is  to  love  each  other,  for  he 
who  loves  his  neighbor  fulfills  the  law.  Hence, 
also,  they  should  regard  with  horror  injuries,  hatred, 
quarrels,  deceits  and  other  evils  which  the  enemy  of 
the  human  race  has  invented,  devised  and  provoked 
to  trouble  the  Church  of  God  and  to  hinder  the  salva- 
tion of  souls;  nor  are  they  to  allege  the  false  pretext 
of  scholastic  opinions  or  that  of  greater  Christian 
perfection.  Finally,  let  all  endeavor  to  acquire  that 
true  wisdom  of  which  St.  James  speaks  (iii,i3):  '  Who 
is  a  wise  man  and  indued  with  knowledge  among  you? 
Let  him  show,  by  a  good  conversation,  his  work  in 
the  meekness  of  wisdom.  But  if  you  have  a  bitter 
zeal,  and  there  be  contentions  in  your  heart;  glory 
not,  and  be  not  liars  against  the  truth.  For  this  is 
not  wisdom,  descending  from  above;  but  earthly, 
sensual,  devilish.  For,  where  envying  and  contention 
is,  there  is  inconstancy,  and  every  evil  work.  For  the 
wisdom,  that  is  from  above,  first  indeed  is  chaste, 


The  Instrument  571 

then  peaceable,  modest,  easy  to  be  persuaded,  consent- 
ing to  the  good,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits,  without 
judging,  without  dissimulation.  And  the  fruit  of 
justice  is  sown  in  peace,  to  them  that  make  peace.' 

"  Even  if  the  superiors  and  the  other  religious  of 
this  Order,  as  well  as  all  those  who  are  interested 
or  pretend  to  be,  in  any  way  whatever,  in  what  has 
been  herein  ordered,  give  no  assent  to  the  present 
Brief  and  were  not  summoned  or  heard,  we  wish, 
nevertheless,  that  it  should  never  be  attacked,  weakened 
or  invalidated  on  the  plea  of  subreption,  obreption, 
nullity,  invalidity  or  defect  of  intention  on  our  part 
or  for  any  other  motive,  no  matter  how  great  or  unfore- 
seen or  essential  it  may  be,  or  because  formalities 
and  other  things  have  been  omitted  which  should  have 
been  observed  in  the  preceding  enactments  or  in  any 
one  of  them,  or  for  any  other  capital  point  deriving 
from  the  law  or  any  custom,  or  indeed  contained  in 
the  body  of  the  law;  nor  can  there  be  any  pretext  of 
an  enormous  or  a  very  enormous  and  extreme  injury 
inflicted;  nor,  finally,  can  there  be  any  reasons  or 
causes  however  just  or  reasonable  they  may  be,  even 
one  that  should  have  necessarily  been  expressed, 
needed  to  give  validity  to  the  rules  above  given.  We 
forbid  that  it  should  be  ever  retracted,  discussed  or 
brought  to  court  or  that  it  be  provided  against  by 
way  of  restitution,  discussion,  review  according  to 
law  or  in  any  other  way  to  obtain  by  legal  procedure, 
fact,  favor  or  justice,  in  any  manner  in  which  it  might  be 
accorded,  to  be  made  use  of  either  in  court  or  out  of  it. 

"Moreover,  we  wish  expressly  that  the  present 
Constitution  should  be  from  this  moment  valid, 
stable  and  efficacious  forever,  that  it  should  have  its 
full  and  entire  effect;  that  it  should  be  inviolably 
observed  by  all  and  each  of  those  to  whom  it  belongs 
or  will  belong  in  the  future  in  any  manner  whatever." 


572  The  Jesuits 

Such  was  the  famous  Brief  which  condemned  the 
Society  to  death.  Distressing  as  it  is,  it  attributes 
no  wrong  doing  to  the  Order.  It  narrates  a  few  of  the 
accusations  against  the  Jesuits,  but  does  not  accept 
them  as  ever  having  been  proved.  The  sole  reason 
given  for  the  suppression  —  and  it  is  repeated  again 
and  again  —  is  that  the  Society  was  the  occasion  of 
much  trouble  in  the  Church.  It  is  thus,  on  the  whole, 
a  vindication  and  not  a  condemnation.  It  was  not 
a  Bull  but  a  Brief,  and  on  that  account  could  be  much 
more  easily  revoked  than  the  more  solemn  document 
to  which  the  papal  bulla  is  affixed. 

Father  Cordara's  view  of  this  act  of  the  Pope  is 
generally  considered  to  reflect  that  of  the  Society  at 
large.  It  is  of  special  value  for  he  was  one  of  the 
suppressed  Jesuits  and  happened  to  be  living  in  Rome 
at  the  time.  He  maintained  that  "  the  Pope  could, 
without  injustice,  suppress  the  Society,  even  if  inno- 
cent, just  as  a  king  can  deliver  over  an  innocent  man 
to  be  put  to  death  by  an  enemy  who  otherwise  would 
sack  a  city.  Clement  XIV  thought  to  save  the  Church 
whose  existence  was  menaced." 

Two  years  later  however,  Cardinal  Antonelli  when 
interrogated  by  Clement's  successor,  Pius  VI,  and,, 
consequently,  when  he  was  compelled  to  speak,  did 
not  hesitate  to  condemn  the  Brief  absolutely.  His 
statement  is  quoted  here,  not  as  a  view  that  is  adopted, 
but  merely  as  a  matter  of  history.  The  document  is  of 
considerable  importance,  for  Antonelli  was  prefect  of 
the  Propaganda  and  with  Consalvi  was  the  confidant 
of  Pius  VII  and  was  his  fellow-prisoner  in  1804.  We 
sum  it  up  briefly,  omitting  its  harsher  phrases. 

1  Your  Holiness  knows  as  well  as  the  cardinals  that 
Clement  XIV  would  never  consent  to  give  the  Brief 
of  Suppression  the  canonical  forms  which  were  indis- 
pensable to  make  it  definitive.  Moreover  this  Brief 


The  Instrument  573 

of  Clement  XIV  is  addressed  to  no  one,  although 
such  letters  usually  are.  In  its  form  and  execution  all 
law  is  set  aside,  it  is  based  on  false  accusations  and 
shameful  calumnies;  it  is  self -contradictory,  in  speaking 
of  vows  both  solemn  and  simple.  Clement  XIV  claims 
powers  such  as  none  of  his  predecessors  claimed,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  leaves  doubts  on  points  that  should 
have  been  more  clearly  determined.  The  motives 
alleged  by  the  Brief  could  be  applied  to  any  other 
Order,  and  seem  to  have  been  prepared  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  of  them,  without  specifying  reasons  it 
annuls  many  Bulls  and  Constitutions  received  and 
recognized  by  the  Church;  all  of  which  goes  to  show 
that  the  Brief  is  null  and  void." 

A  copy  of  the  Brief  was  sent  to  every  bishop  in 
Christendom,  even  to  the  remotest  missions.  Accom- 
panying it  was  another  document  called  an  "  Ency- 
clical from  the  Congregation  styled  '  For  the  abolition 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,'  with  which  is  sent  an  exemplar 
to  every  bishop  of  the  Brief  of  Extinction:  Dominus 
ac  Redemptor,  with  the  command  of  His  Holiness 
that  all  the  bishops  should  publish  and  promulgate 
the  Brief."  The  Latin  text  may  be  found  in  de  Ravig- 
nan's  "  Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV  "  (p.  560). 
We  give  here  the  translation: 

"  Most  Illustrious  and  Most  Reverend  Lord  and 
Brother. 

"From  the  printed  copy  herein  contained  of  the 
Apostolic  Letters  in  the  form  of  a  Brief,  under  the  date 
of  the  2ist  of  the  preceding  month  of  July,  your 
lordship  will  learn  of  the  suppression  and  extinction 
for  just  causes  of  the  Regular  Clerics  hitherto  called 
"  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  "  by  the  most  holy  Lord 
Clement  XIV ;  you  will  also  learn  by  what  legal  process 
His  Holiness  has  decreed  that  the  suppression  should 
be  carried  out  in  every  part  of  the  world.  For  the 


574  The  Jesuits 

complete  destruction  of  the  same,  he  has  established 
a  special  congregation  of  their  eminences,  the  Cardinals 
Corsini,  Marefoschi,  Caraffa,  Zelada,  and  Casali, 
together  with  the  Reverend  Macedonio  and  Alfani, 
who  possess  the  most  ample  faculties  for  what  is 
necessary  and  proper.  The  Brief  establishing  this 
congregation,  under  date  of  the  i8th  of  the  current 
month  of  August,  is  herein  enclosed. 

"By  command  of  His  Holiness  the  same  congregation 
transmits  the  present  letters  to  your  lordship,  in 
order  that  in  each  house  and  college  and  place  where 
the  individuals  of  the  aforesaid  suppressed  Society 
may  be  found,  your  lordship  shall  assemble  them  in 
any  house  whatever  (in  qualibet  domo)  and  you  shall 
regularly  (rite)  announce,  publish  and  intimate,  as 
they  say,  and  force  and  compel  them  to  execute 
these  letters;  and  your  lordship  shall  take  and  retain 
possession  for  the  use  afterwards  to  be  designated  by 
His  Holiness,  of  all  and  each  of  the  houses,  colleges 
and  places  of  the  same,  with  the  lawful  rights  to  their 
goods  and  appurtenances,  after  having  removed  the 
aforesaid  individuals  of  the  suppressed  Society;  and 
in  their  execution,  your  lordship  will  do  whatever 
else  is  decreed  in  the  letters  of  suppression  and  will 
advise  the  special  congregation  that  such  execution 
has  been  carried  out.  Your  lordship  will  see  to  it. 
Meantime  we  entreat  the  Lord  that  all  things  may 
prosper  with  you. 

"Yours  with  brotherly  devotedness. 
"Rome,  Aug.  18,  1773-" 

Carayon  gives  us  the  personnel  of  this  congregation 
(Doc.  inedits,  xvii).  Cardinal  Marefoschi,  who  had 
been  for  sixteen  years  secretary  of  the  Propaganda, 
had  made  a  digest  of  all  the  complaints  uttered  by 
missionaries  in  various  parts  of  the  world  against  the 
Jesuits,  omitting,  however,  all  that  had  been  said  in 


The  Instrument  575 

their  favor.  The  Pope  had  named  him  visitor  of 
the  Irish  College,  which  had  been  entrusted  to  the 
Society  by  Cardinal  Ludovisi,  and  he  immediately 
removed  the  Jesuits.  Among  other  professors  he 
put  in  a  certain  Tamburini,  who  had  been  expelled 
from  Brescia  for  Jansenism.  In  Marefoschi's  report 
to  the  Pope,  the  former  professors  (the  Jesuits)  were 
accused  of  neglect  of  the  studies,  alienation  of  ecclesi- 
astical property  and  swindling,  with  a  consequent 
diminution  of  the  revenues.  He  was  then  sent  to 
visit  the  College  of  Tuccioli  and  similar  disastrous 
results  ensued.  In  June,  1772,  he  and  the  Cardinal 
of  York  expelled  the  Jesuits  from  the  Roman  Seminary 
and  in  the  same  year  from  Frascati.  The  entire  city 
addressed  a  petition  to  the  cardinal  begging  him  not 
to  drive  out  the  Fathers,  but  his  royal  highness  was 
so  wrought  up  by  the  audacity  of  the  request  that 
he  was  on  the  point  of  putting  some  of  the  chief 
petitioners  in  jail,  magistrates  though  they  were. 

With  Marefoschi  were  three  other  cardinals,  Casali, 
Caraffa,  and  Zelada,  all  three  of  whom  had  been  raised 
to  the  purple  in  the  month  of  May  at  the  suggestion 
of  Mgr.  Bottari,  who  had  been  filling  Rome  with 
defamatory  books  against  the  Jesuits.  In  spite  of  the 
entreaties  of  his  family,  young  Cardinal  Corsini  accepted 
the  presidency.  Macedonio  was  made  secretary,  and 
Alfani,  assessor;  both  of  these  clergymen  were  subse- 
quently charged  with  pillage  of  the  sequestrated 
property.  Finally,  to  give  an  appearance  of  acting 
in  conformity  with  canon  law,  two  theologians  were 
added  to  the  commission;  Mamachi,  a  Dominican, 
and  de  Casal,  a  Minor  Reformed;  both  were  avowed 
enemies  of  Probabilism  and  Molinism,  and,  singularly 
enough,  were  bitterly  opposed  to  the  Apostolic  Con- 
stitution "  Unigenitus  "  in  which  Clement  XI  con- 
demned the  Jansenistic  errors  of  Pasquier  Quesnel. 


576  The  Jesuits 

The  Protestant  historian  Schoell  (xliv,  83)  speaking 
of  the  brief  of  suppression  says:  "  This  Brief  does  not 
condemn  the  doctrine  nor  the  morals,  nor  the  rules  of 
the  Jesuits.  The  complaints  of  the  courts  are  the 
sole  motives  alleged  for  the  suppression  of  the  Order, 
and  the  Pope  justifies  himself  by  the  precedents  of  other 
Orders  which  were  suppressed  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  public  opinion."  As  he  was  about  to  sign  it,  he 
heard  the  bells  of  the  Gesu  ringing.  ' '  What  is  that  f  or  ? " 
he  asked.  "The  Jesuits  are  about  to  recite  the  Litany 
of  the  Saints,"  he  was  told;  "  Not  the  Litany  of  the 
Saints,"  he  said,  "but  the  Litany  of  the  Dead."  It 
was  July  21,  1773. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  EXECUTION 

Seizure  of  the  Gesil  in  Rome  —  Suspension  of  the  Priests  —  Juri- 
dical Trial  of  Father  Ricci  continued  during  Two  Years  —  The  Vic- 
tim's Death-bed  Statement  —  Admission  of  his  Innocence  by  the 
Inquisitors  —  Obsequies  —  Reason  of  his  Protracted  Imprisonment  — 
Liberation  of  the  Assistants  by  Pius  VI  —  Receipt  of  the  Brief  outside 
of  Rome  —  Refused  by  Switzerland,  Poland,  Russia  and  Prussia  — 
Read  to  the  Prisoners  in  Portugal  by  Pombal  —  Denunciation  of  it 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  —  Suppression  of  the  Document  by  the 
Bishop  of  Quebec  —  Acceptance  by  Austria  —  Its  Enforcement  in 
Belgium  —  Carroll  at  Bruges  —  Defective  Promulgation  in  Maryland. 

Two  days  before  the  subsidiary  Brief  was  signed, 
namely  on  August  16,  1773,  the  commissioner  began 
operations.  Led  by  Alfani  and  Macedonio,  a  squad 
of  soldiers  invaded  the  Gesu,  where  the  General  and 
his  assistants  were  notified  of  the  suppression  of 
the  Society.  Apparently  no  one  else  was  cited,  and 
hence,  according  to  de  Ravignan,  the  procedure  was 
illegal  as  far  as  the  rest  of  the  community  was  con- 
cerned. However,  they  made  no  difficulty  about  it 
and  from  that  moment  considered  themselves  as  no 
longer  Jesuits.  It  was  supposed  that  a  great  amount 
of  money  would  be  seized  at  the  central  house  of  the 
Society;  but  the  hope  was  not  realized;  for  only  about 
$50,000  were  found,  and  that  sum  had  been  collected 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  beatification  of  St. 
Francis  Hieronymo.  It  really  belonged  to  St.  Peter's 
rather  than  to  the  Gesu.  However,  there  was  plenty 
of  material  in  the  gold  and  silver  vessels  of  the  chapels, 
the  works  of  art,  the  valuable  library,  and  the  archives. 
The  same  process  was  followed  in  the  other  Jesuit 
establishments  of  the  city.  The  Fathers  were  locked 
up  while  the  soldiers  guarded  the  doors  and  swarmed 

37  577 


578  The  Jesuits 

through  the  rooms  and  passage  ways.  The  old  and 
infirm  were  carried  to  the  Roman  College,  and  then 
sent  back  to  the  place  whence  they  had  been  taken; 
in  both  instances  on  stretchers,  when  the  victim  was 
unable  to  walk.  One  old  Father  was  actually  breath- 
ing his  last  during  the  transfer.  They  were  all 
suspended  from  their  priestly  faculties,  and  ordered 
to  report  every  three  months  to  the  authorities  with 
a  certificate  of  their  good  behavior,  signed  by  the 
parish  priest.  They  were  ecclesiastical  "  ticket  of 
leave  men."  Pretexts  were  multiplied  to  have  many 
of  them  arrested.  They  were  paraded  through  the 
streets  in  custody  of  a  policeman,  and  after  being  put 
in  the  dock  with  common  criminals  were  locked  up 
or  banished  from  the  Papal  States. 

On  August  17  at  night-fall,  the  carriage  of  Cardinal 
Corsini  drove  to  the  Gesu.  In  it  was  the  auditor  of 
the  congregation  with  a  request  to  Father  Ricci  to 
meet  the  cardinal  at  the  English  College.  The  invita- 
tion was  accepted  in  perfect  good  faith,  although  that 
very  morning  an  offer  made  by  the  minister  of  Tuscany 
to  take  the  General  under  his  protection  and  thus 
secure  him  from  arrest  had  been  declined  by  Ricci. 
The  freedom  of  the  house  was  given  to  him  on  his 
arrival,  but  soon  he  was  restricted  to  three  rooms, 
and  he  then  noticed  that  soldiers  were  on  guard  both 
inside  and  outside  of  the  college.  He  was  kept  there 
for  more  than  a  month,  during  which  time  he  was 
subjected  to  several  judicial  examinations;  finally  he 
was  transferred  to  the  Castle  Sant'  Angelo  where  he 
was  soon  followed  by  his  secretary,  Commolli,  and  the 
assistants,  Le  Forestier,  Zaccharia,  Gautier  and  Faure. 
They  were  all  assigned  to  separate  cells.  The  enemies 
of  the  Society  now  had  the  arch-criminal  in  their 
hands,  the  General  himself,  Father  Ricci;  and  they 
could  get  from  him  all  the  secrets  of  the  redoubtable 


The  Execution  579 

organization  which  they  had  destroyed.  His  papers, 
both  private  and  official,  were  in  their  possession. 
The  archives  of  the  Society  were  before  them  with 
information  about  every  member  of  it  from  the  begin- 
ning, as  well  as  all  the  personal  letters  from  all  over  the 
world  written  in  every  conceivable  circumstance  of 
Jesuit  life.  They  were  all  carefully  studied  and  yet 
no  cause  for  accusation  was  found  in  them.  The 
jailors  seemed  to  have  lost  their  heads  and  to  have 
forgotten  their  usual  tactics  of  forgery  and  inter- 
polation. 

The  trial  of  Father  Ricci  was  amazing  both  in  its 
procedure  and  its  length.  There  were  no  witnesses  to 
give  testimony  for  or  against  him,  but  he  was  brutally 
and  repeatedly  interrogated  by  an  official  named 
Andrettiwho  was  suggestively  styled  "the  criminalist." 
The  interrogatories  have  all  been  printed,  and  some 
of  the  questions  are  remarkable  for  their  stupidity. 
Thus  for  instance,  he  was  asked,  "  Do  you  think  you 
have  any  authority  since  the  suppression  of  the 
Society?"  The  answer  was.  "  I  am  quite  persuaded 
I  have  none."  "  What  authority  would  you  have  if, 
instead  of  abolishing  the  Society,  the  Pope  had  done 
something  else?"  "  What  he  would  give  me."  "  Are 
there  any  abuses  in  the  Order?"  To  this  he  replied, 
"  If  you  mean  general  abuses,  I  answer  that,  by  the 
mercy  of  God  there  are  none.  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  in  the  Society  a  great  deal  of  piety,  regularity,  zeal, 
and  especially  charity,  which  has  shown  itself  in  a 
remarkable  way  during  these  fifteen  years  of  bitter 
trials."  "  Have  you  made  any  changes  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Order?"  "  None."  :<  Where  are  your 
moneys?"  "  I  have  none.  I  had  not  enough  to 
keep  the  exiles  of  Spain  and  Portugal  from  starvation." 

The  result  of  this  investigation  which  went  on  for 
more  than  two  years  was  that  nothing  was  found  either 


580  The  Jesuits 

< 

against  him  or  against  the  Society,  and  yet  he  was 
kept  in  a  dungeon  until  he  died.  As  the  end  was 
approaching  Father  Ricci  read  from  his  dying  bed 
the  following  declaration: 

"  Because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  moment  when 
God  will  please  to  summon  me  before  him  and  also  in 
view  of  my  advanced  age  and  the  multitude,  duration, 
and  greatness  of  my  sufferings,  which  have  been  far 
beyond  my  strength,  being  on  the  point  of  appearing 
before  the  infallible  tribunal  of  truth  and  justice, 
after  long  and  mature  deliberation  and  after  having 
humbly  invoked  my  most  merciful  Redeemer  that 
He  will  not  permit  me  to  speak  from  passion,  especially 
in  this  the  last  action  of  my  life,  nor  be  moved  by 
any  bitterness  of  heart,  or  out  of  wrong  desire  or  evil 
purpose,  but  only  to  acquit  myself  of  my  obligation 
to  bear  testimony  to  truth  and  to  innocence,  I  now 
make  the  two  following  declarations  and  protests: 

"  First,  I  declare  and  protest  that  the  extinct  Society 
of  Jesus  has  given  no  reason  for  its  suppression;  and 
I  declare  and  protest  with  that  moral  certainty  which 
a  well-informed  superior  has  of  what  passes  in  his 
Order.  Second,  I  declare  and  protest  that  I  have 
given  no  reason,  not  even  the  slightest,  for  my  imprison- 
ment, and  I  do  so  with  that  sovereign  certitude  which 
each  one  has  of  his  own  actions.  I  make  this  second 
protest  solely  because  it  is  necessary  for  the  reputation 
of  the  extinct  Society  of  which  I  was  superior. 

"  I  do  not  pretend  in  consequence  of  these  protests 
that  I  or  any  one  may  judge  as  guilty  before  God 
any  of  those  who  have  injured  the  Society  of  Jesus 
or  mysejf.  The  thoughts  of  men  are  known  to  God 
alone.  He  alone  sees  the  errors  of  the  human  mind 
and  sees  if  they  are  such  as  to  excuse  from  sin;  He 
alone  penetrates  the  motives  of  acts;  as  well  as  the 
spirit  in  which  things  are  done,  and  the  affections  of 


The  Execution  581 

the  heart  that  accompany  such  actions;  and  since  the 
malice  or  innocence  of  an  external  act  depends  on  all 
these  things,  I  leave  it  to  God  Who  shall  interrogate 
man's  thoughts  and  deeds. 

"  To  do  my  duty  as  a  Christian,  I  protest  that  with 
the  help  of  God  I  have  always  pardoned  and  do  now 
sincerely  pardon  all  those  who  have  tortured  and 
harmed  me,  first,  by  the  evils  they  have  heaped  on 
the  Society  and  by  the  rigorous  measures  they  have 
employed  in  dealing  with  its  members;  secondly,  by 
the  extinction  of  the  Society  and  by  its  accompanying 
circumstances;  thirdly,  by  my  own  imprisonment,  and 
the  hardships  they  have  added  to  it,  and  by  the  harm 
they  have  done  to  my  reputation;  all  of  which  are 
public  and  notorious  facts.  I  pray  God,  out  of  His 
goodness  and  mercy,  through  the  merits  of  Jesus 
Christ,  to  pardon  me  my  many  sins  and  to  pardon 
also  all  the  authors  of  the  above-mentioned  evils  and 
wrongs,  as  well  as  their  co-operators.  With  this 
sentiment  and  with  this  prayer  I  wish  to  die. 

"  Finally  I  beg  and  conjure  all  those  who  may  read 
these  declarations  and  protests  to  make  them  public 
throughout  the  world  as  far  as  in  them  lies.  I  ask 
this  by  all  the  titles  of  humanity,  justice  and  Christian 
charity  that  may  persuade  them  to  carry  out  my  will 
and  desire,  (signed)  Lorenzo  Ricci." 

The  trial  had  been  purposely  prolonged.  At  each 
session  only  three  of  four  questions  would  be  put  to 
the  accused,  although  he  constantly  entreated  the 
inquisitors  to  proceed.  Then  there  would  be  an 
interruption  of  eight,  ten  and  even  twenty  days  or 
more.  At  times  the  interrogations  were  sent  in  on 
paper,  until  finally,  Andretti,  the  chief  inquisitor,  said 
that  the  case  was  ended  and  he  would  return  no  more. 
Nevertheless  he  made  his  appearance  a  few  days  later. 

"  No  doubt,"  says  Father  Ricci,  "someone  had  told 


582  The  Jesuits 

him  that  the  whole  process  was  null  and  void;  and  I 
pitied  this  honest  man,  advanced  in  age  as  he  was,  and 
so  long  in  the  practice  of  his  profession,  who  was  now 
told  that  he  did  not  know  the  conditions  necessary  for 
the  validity  of  a  process.  Those  who  gave  him  that 
information  should  have  warned  him  long  before. 
So  he  began  again,  going  over  the  same  ground  in  the 
same  way,  and  I  gave  him  thei  same  answers.  His 
questions  were  always  preceded  by  long  formulae  to 
which  I  paid  no  heed.  After  each  question,  he  made 
me  repeat  my  oath.  I  asked  him  to  let  me  know  the 
reason  of  my  incarceration  and  could  get  no  answer; 
but,  finally  he  uttered  these  words:  '  Be  content  to 
know  that  you  have  not  been  imprisoned  for  any 
crime;  and  you  might  have  inferred  that  from  the  fact 
that  I  have  not  interrogated  you  about  anything 
criminal  whatever.'  ' 

As  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  exoneration  by 
the  official  deputed  to  try  him,  it  follows  that  the 
Order  of  which  he  was  the  chief  superior  was  also 
without  reproach;  for,  if  the  numberless  offences 
alleged  against  the  Society  were  true,  it  would  have 
been  absolutely  impossible  for  the  General  not  to 
have  known  them;  and  having  this  knowledge,  he 
would  have  been  culpable  and  deserving  of  the  severest 
punishment,  if  there  had  been  dissensions  in  the  Order 
and  he  had  not  endeavored  to  repress  them;  if  lax 
morality  had  been  taught  and  he  did  not  censure  it; 
if  the  Society  had  indulged  in  mercantile  transactions 
and  he  had  not  condemned  such  departures  from  the 
law;  if  it  had  been  guilty  of  ambition  and  he  had  not 
crushed  it.  Being  the  centre  and  the  source  of  all 
authority  and  of  all  activity  in  the  Order,  his  knowledge 
of  what  is  going  on  extends  to  very  minute  details 
and  hence  if  the  Order  was  guilty  he  was  the  chief 
criminal.  But  even  his  bitterly  prejudiced  judges 


The  Execution  583 

had  declared  him  innocent  and  he  was,  therefore, 
to  be  set  free. 

At  this  juncture,  the  Spanish  minister,  Florida 
Blanca,  intervened  and  in  the  name  of  Charles  III 
warned  the  Pope  not  to  dare  to  release  him.  The 
Bourbons  were  still  bent  on  terrorizing  the  Holy  See. 
The  difficulty  was  solved  by  the  victim  himself  who 
died  on  November  24,  1775.  He  was  then  seventy- 
two  years  of  age.  He  was  able  to  speak  up  to  the 
last  moment  and  was  often  heard  to  moan:  "Ah! 
poor  Society!  At  least  to  my  knowledge  you  did  not 
deserve  the  punishment  that  was  meted  out  to  you." 

On  the  evening  of  the  25th,  Father  Ricci's  remains 
were  carried  to  the  Church  of  St.  John  of  the  Floren- 
tines. The  whole  edifice  was  draped  in  black,  and  the 
coffin  was  placed  on  the  bier  around  which  were 
thirty  funeral  torches.  A  vast  multitude  took  part 
in  the  services.  The  Bishop  of  Commachio,  a  staunch 
friend  of  the  Society,  celebrated  the  Mass.  He  came, 
he  said,  not  to  pray  for  the  General  but  to  pray  to  him. 
Another  bishop  exclaimed:  "  Behold  the  martyr!" 
In  the  evening,  the  corpse  was  carried  to  the  Gesu. 
It  should  have  arrived  by  9  o'clock,  but  it  reached 
the  church  only  at  midnight.  To  avoid  any  demon- 
stration, the  approaches  to  the  church  had  been  closed, 
and  there  were  only  five  or  six  Fathers  present.  From 
Garayon's  narrative  it  would  appear  that  the  uncof- 
fined  body  was  carried  in  a  coach  and  was  clothed  in  a 
very  short  and  very  shabby  habit.  The  cure  of  the 
parish  and  two  other  persons  were  in  the  conveyance. 
Two  other  carriages  whose  occupants  were  unknown 
but  who  were  suspected  of  being  spies  followed  close 
behind.  After  the  absolution,  the  body  was  placed 
in  the  coffin  and  laid  in  the  vault  beside  the  remains  of 
Ricci's  seventeen  predecessors.  The  tomb  was  then 
closed  and  a  scrap  of  paper  was  fixed  on  it,  with  the 


584  The  Jesuits 

inscription :  "  Lorenzo  Ricci,  ex-General  of  the  Jesuits, 
died  at  Castle  Sant'  Angelo,  November  24,  1775." 

After  reciting  these  facts,  Boero  asks  why  the  ex- 
General  was  kept  in  such  a  long  and  severe  confinement  ? 
There  is  no  answer,  he  says,  except  that  such  was  the 
good  pleasure  of  His  Majesty  Charles  III.  The 
Spanish  minister,  Monino,  had  declared  that  such  was 
the  case.  To  let  him  out  alive  would  have  been 
an  indirect  condemnation  of  the  pressure  exerted  by 
the  court  of  Madrid  in  directing  the  course  of  the 
commission  which  had  been  expressly  created  to  pass 
a  sentence  of  death  on  the  Society.  The  knowledge 
that  the  General  and  his  assistants  had  issued  alive 
from  the  dungeons  of  Sant'  Angelo  would  have  troubled 
the  peace  of  Charles  III  and  his  fellow-conspirators; 
hence,  in  spite  of  the  good  will  and  the  affection  of 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  Father  Ricci,  after  two  years 
imprisonment  in  Adrian's  Tomb,  was  carried  out  a 
corpse.  Those  of  his  companions  who  survived  were 
released,  but  were  commanded  by  the  judges  to 
observe  the  strictest  silence  on  what  had  passed  during 
their  captivity,  or  not  to  tell  what  questions  had  been 
put  to  them. 

One  of  the  victims  showed  his  indignation  at  this 
excessive  cruelty,  and  exclaimed,  "  Why  should  you 
require  me  to  swear  on  the  Holy  Gospels  not  to  speak 
of  my  trial,  when  you  know  very  well  that  it  con- 
sisted of  two  or  three  insignificant  and  ridiculous 
questions?"  Another  assistant  was  merely  asked  his 
name  and  birthplace,  and  no  more.  A  third  satis- 
fied the  judges  when  he  replied,  "  I  have  neither  said 
nor  done  anything  wrong."  He  was  never  interro- 
gated again.  The  secretary  of  the  Society  had  been 
asked  in  what  subterranean  hiding-place  he  kept  the 
treasures.  He  answered  that  there  were  no  sub- 
terranean hiding-places,  and  no  treasures.  In  that 


The  Execution  585 

consisted  his  whole  examination.  He  died  shortly 
afterwards  of  sickness  contracted  in  the  prison  and  his 
death  was  for  a  long  time  concealed. 

Father  Faure  inquired  of  one  of  his  judges:  "  For 
what  crime  am  I  in  jail?"  "  For  none,"  was  the  reply, 
'  'but  the  fear  of  your  pen,  and  especially  the  fear  of  having 
you  write  against  the  Brief.  That  is  the  only  cause  of 
your  imprisonment."  "  By  the  same  rule,"  retorted 
the  prisoner,  "  you  might  send  me  to  the  galleys  for 
fear  I  might  steal,  or  to  be  hanged  to  prevent  me  from 
committing  murder."  He  was  the  only  recalcitrant, 
and  he  was  so  dreaded  that  during  his  incarceration  he 
was  ordered  to  keep  his  light  burning  all  night,  so 
that  he  might  be  watched.  This  was  after  they 
found  a  black  spot  on  his  bed.  They  thought  it 
was  ink.  Father  Ricci,  however,  contrived  to  keep 
an  exact  account  of  the  questions  that  were  asked. 
Carayon  has  published  them  in  'his  "  Documents 
inedits." 

One  of  these  redoubtable  personages  so  rigidly 
kept  in  confinement  was  Father  Romberg,  the  German 
assistant,  who  was  eighty-two  years  of  age.  He 
became  very  feeble,  and  had  a  stroke  of  paralysis 
which  kept  him  to  his  chair.  When  the  governor 
of  the  Castle  came  with  the  judges  and  officials  to 
tell  him  he  was  free,  he  thanked  them  effusively,  but 
requested  the  favor  of  being  left  in  his  cell  to  die. 
"  You  see,"  said  he,  "I  have  two  fine  friends  who  are 
prisoners  here,  and  they,  out  of  charity,  come  regularly 
every  morning  and  carry  me  in  my  chair  to  the  chapel 
where  I  can  hear  Mass  and  go  to  Communion.  If  I 
leave  this  place,  God  knows  if  I  should  have  the  same 
help  and  the  same  consolation. ' '  This  was  a  specimen  of 
the  men  who  made  Charles  III  and  Florida  Blanca 
tremble.  In  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  Spanish 
minister,  every  one  was  set  free  on  February  16,  1776, 


586  The  Jesuits 

and  Pius  VI  cancelled  the  order  of  the  inquisitors  who 
forbade  their  victims  to  hold  any  communication 
with  their  fellow- Jesuits. 

The  manner  in  which  the  Brief  was  executed  out- 
side of  Rome  varied  with  the  mentality  and  morality 
of  the  nations  to  which  it  was  sent.  Much  to  the 
chagrin  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  it  was  enthusiastically 
acclaimed  by  all  the  Protestants  and  infidels  of  Europe. 
For,  was  it  not  a  justification  of  all  the  hatred  they  had 
invariably  heaped  on  the  Society  wherever  it  happened 
to  be?  They  could  now  congratulate  themselves  that 
they  had  instinctively  divined  the  malignant  character 
of  the  Institute  which  it  took  centuries  for  the  Church 
to  discover,  and  they  logically  concluded  that  all  the 
laudatory  Bulls  lavished  on  the  Society  by  previous 
Pontiffs  were  intentional  deceits  or  ignorant  delusions. 
They  might  have  argued  contrariwise,  but  as  it  would 
have  been  against  themselves  they  refrained.  They 
were  jubilant  because  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  had 
slain  their  chief  enemy,  and  they  had  a  medal  struck 
to  commemorate  the  event. 

In  "  Les  Jesuites  "  by  Bohmer-Monod  (p.  278)  we 
find  the  following:  "  Cultured  Europe  triumphed  in 
the  Suppression  of  the  Order,  and  the  people  every- 
where showed  their  approval.  Here  and  there  some 
pious  devotees  raised  their  voices  in  lamentation, 
but  nowhere  in  Europe  or  elsewhere  was  there  any 
serious  opposition  to  the  Brief.  The  Order  had  for- 
feited all  esteem ;  and  public  opinion  evinced  no 
compassion  for  anything  tragic  that  occurred  in  its 
fall.  It  remained  quite  indifferent  to  the  atrocities  of 
which  Pombal  was  guilty.  The  injustices  which  cer- 
tain Fathers  suffered  in  various  places  were  considered 
a  just  retribution  or  at  least  were  regarded  as  necessary 
for  progress  of  light  and  virtue."  This  is  not  very 
flattering  to  "cultured  "  Europe. 


The  Execution  587 

Apart  from  the  self-stultifying  utterances  on  this 
quotation,  as  for  instance,  that  "  the  injustices  suf- 
fered were  a  just  retribution,  or  were  at  least  regarded 
as  necessary  for  the  progress  of  light  and  virtue,"  and 
also  that  certain  Fathers  suffered  in  various  places; 
whereas  the  same  authors  give  23,000  who  suffered 
all  over  the  world,  it  is  an  absolute  contradiction  with 
the  facts  of  the  case  to  say  that  "  nowhere  in  Europe 
was  there  any  serious  opposition  to  the  Brief  "  and 
that  "  they  everywhere  showed  their  approval  and 
evinced  no  compassion  for  anything  tragic  that  occurred 
in  the  fall." 

In  the  first  place,  Frederick  the  Great  in  Prussia  and 
Catherine  II  of  Russia  not  only  would  not  allow  the 
Brief  in  their  dominions,  but  forbade  it  under  the 
severest  penalties.  Poland  for  a  long  time  refused  to 
receive  it,  and  the  Catholic  cantons  of  Switzerland  sent 
a  remonstrance  to  the  Pope.  Moreover,  although, 
even  before  the  document  was  promulgated,  the 
Fathers  had  secularized  themselves  of  their  own 
initiative,  yet,  the  authorities  would  not  allow  them 
to  give  up  the  colleges.  The  other  side  of  the  picture 
was  that  in  Naples,  Tanucci  not  only  forbade  the  Brief 
to  be  read  under  pain  of  death,  but  forbade  all  men- 
tion of  it.  In  Portugal,  of  course,  no  opposition  was 
made  for  there  were  no  Jesuits  to  suppress,  they  were 
either  dead  or  in  prison  or  exile.  It  was,  however, 
an  occasion  of  public  rejoicing,  and  the  document  was 
received  with  booming  of  cannon  and  ringing  of  bells, 
as  if  a  victory  had  been  won,  but  that  governmental 
device  did  not  extinguish  in  the  heart  of  the  suffering 
people  a  deep  compassion  for  the  victims  of  Pombal's 
"  atrocities." 

In  Spain,  it  was  absolutely  prohibited  to  read  it 
or  speak  about  the  Brief,  because  by  its  eulogy  of 
the  virtues  of  the  members  of  the  Society,  it  gave  the 


588  The  Jesuits 

lie  to  the  government,  which  insisted  on  the  suppression 
of  the  Society  precisely  because  of  the  immorality  of 
its  members.  In  France,  its  promulgation  was  for- 
bidden for  the  very  opposite  reason,  that  is,  because  it 
praised  the  Institute,  which  the  politicians  had  declared 
to  be  essentially  vicious;  though  they  admitted  that 
the  individual  Jesuits  were  irreproachable.  Thus, 
like  Spain,  France  had  been  officially  convicted  by 
the  Brief  of  calumniating,  plundering  and  annihilating 
a  great  religious  order.  Voltaire,  commenting  on  the 
situation,  suggested  that  there  might  be  a  sort  of 
national  exchange  by  France  and  Spain.  "  Send  the 
French  Jesuits  to  Spain,"  he  said,  "  and  they  will 
edify  the  people  by  observing  the  Institute,  and  send 
the  Spaniards  to  France  where  they  will  satisfy  the 
people  by  not  observing  it." 

The  most  notable  opposition  to  the  Brief,  occurred 
in  France.  The  whole  hierarchy  and  clergy  positively 
refused  to  accept  it,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
Christopher  de  Beaumont,  who  had  been  especially 
requested  by  the  Pope  to  promulgate  it,  answered  by 
a  letter  which  is  unpleasant  for  a  Jesuit  to  publish  on 
account  of  its  tone;  for  the  most  profound  affection 
and  reverence  for  the  Holy  See  is  one  of  the  ingrained 
and  distinctive  traits  of  the  Society.  However,  it  is 
a  historical  document  and  is  called  for  in  the  present 
instance  as  a  refutation  of  the  statement  that  there 
was  no  opposition  to  the  Brief  in  Europe  This  famous 
letter  was  dated  April  24,  1774,  that  is  more  than 
eight  months  after  the  Suppression.  It  is  addressed 
to  the  Holy  Father  himself  and  runs  as  follows: 

'  This  Brief  is  nothing  else  than  a  personal  and 
private  judgment.  Among  other  things  that  are  re- 
marked in  it  by  our  clergy  is  the  extraordinary,  odious, 
and  immoderate  characterization  of  the  Bull  "  Pascendi 
Munus  "  of  the  saintly  Clement  XIII,  whose  memory 


The  Execution  589 

will  be  forever  glorious  and  who  had  invested  the  Bull 
in  question  with  all  the  due  and  proper  formalities  of 
such  documents.  It  is  described  by  the  Brief  not 
only  as  being  inexact  but  as  having  been  '  extorted  ' 
rather  than  obtained;  whereas  it  has  all  the  authority 
of  a  general  council;  for  it  was  not  promulgated  until 
almost  the  whole  clergy  of  the  Church  and  all  the 
secular  princes  had  been  consulted  by  the  Holy  Father. 
The  clergy  with  common  accord  and  with  one  voice 
applauded  the  purpose  of  the  Holy  Father,  and  earn- 
estly begged  him  to  carry  it  out.  It  was  conceived 
and  published  in  a  manner  as  general  as  it  was  solemn. 
And  is  it  not  precisely  that,  Holy  Father,  which  really 
gives  the  efficacity,  the  reality  and  the  force  to  a  general 
council,  rather  than  the  material  union  of  some  persons 
who  though  physically  united  may  be  very  far  from 
one  another  in  their  judgments  and  their  views? 
As  for  the  secular  princes,  if  there  were  any  who 
did  not  unite  with  the  others  to  give  their  approbation, 
their  number  was  inconsiderable.  Not  one  of  them 
protested  against  it,  not  one  opposed  it,  and  even 
those  who,  at  that  very  time,  were  laying  their  plans 
to  banish  the  Jesuits,  allowed  the  Bull  to  be  published 
in  their  dominions. 

"  But  as  the  spirit  of  the  Church  is  one  and  indivisible 
in  its  teaching  of  truth,  we  have  to  conclude  that  it 
cannot  teach  error  when  it  deals  in  a  solemn  manner 
with  a  matter  of  supreme  importance.  Yet  it  would 
have  led  us  into  error  if  it  had  not  only  proclaimed 
the  Institute  of  the  Society  to  be  pious  and  holy, 
but  had  solemnly  and  explicitly  said:  'We  know  of 
certain  knowledge  that  it  diffuses  abroad  and  abund- 
antly the  odor  of  sanctity.'  In  saying  this  it  put  upon 
that  Institute  the  seal  of  its  approbation,  and  confirmed 
anew  not  only  the  Society  itself,  but  the  members 
who  composed  it,  the  functions  it  exercised,  the  doctrines 


590  The  Jesuits 

it  taught,  the  glorious  works  it  accomplished,  all  of 
which  shed  lustre  upon  it,  in  spite  of  the  calumnies  by 
which  it  was  assailed  and  the  storms  of  persecution 
which  were  let  loose  against  it.  Thus  the  Church 
would  have  deceived  us  most  effectively  on  that 
occasion  if  it  would  now  have  us  accept  this  Brief 
which  destroys  the  Society;  and  also  if  we  are  to  sup- 
pose that  this  Brief  is  on  the  same  level  in  its  law- 
fulness and  its  universality  as  the  Constitution  to 
which  we  refer.  We  abstract,  Holy  Father,  from  the 
individuals  whom  we  might  easily  name,  both  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  who  have  meddled  with  this  affair. 
Their  character,  condition,  doctrine,  sentiment,  not  to 
say  more  of  them,  are  so  little  worthy  of  respect,  as  to 
justify  us  in  expressing  the  formal  and  positive  judgment 
that  the  Brief  which  destroys  the  Society  of  Jesus  is 
nothing  else  than  an  isolated,  private  and  pernicious 
judgment,  which  does  no  honor  to  the  tiara  and  is 
prejudicial  to  the  glory  of  the  Church  and  the  growth 
and  conservation  of  the  Orthodox  Faith. 

"  In  any  case,  Holy  Father,  it  is  impossible  for  me 
to  ask  the  clergy  to  accept  the  Brief;  for  in  the  first 
place,  I  would  not  be  listened  to,  were  I  unfortunate 
enought  to  lend  the  aid  of  my  ministry  to  its  accept- 
ance. Moreover,  I  would  dishonor  my  office  if  I  did 
so,  for  the  memory  of  the  recent  general  assembly 
which  I  had  the  honor  to  convoke  at  the  instance  of 
His  Majesty,  to  inquire  into  the  need  we  have  of  the 
Society  in  France,  its  usefulness,  the  purity  of  its 
doctrines,  etc.,  is  too  fresh  in  my  mind  to  reverse  my 
verdict.  To  charge  myself  with  the  task  you  wish  me 
to  perform  would  be  to  inflict  a  serious  injury  on 
religion  as  well  as  to  cast  an  aspersion  on  the  learning 
and  integrity  of  the  prelates  who  laid  before  the  king 
their  approval  of  the  very  points  which  are  now  con- 
demned by  the  Brief.  Moreover,  if  it  is  true  that  the 


The  Execution  591 

Order  is  to  be  condemned  under  the  specious  pretext 
of  the  impossibility  of  peace,  as  long  as  the  Society 
exists,  why  not  try  it  on  those  bodies  which  are  jealous 
of  the  Society?  Instead  of  condemning  it  you  ought 
to  canonize  it.  That  you  do  not  do  so  compels  us  to 
form  a  judgment  of  the  Brief  which,  though  just,  is 
not  in  its  favor. 

"  For  what  is  that  peace  which  is  incompatible  with 
this  Society?  The  question  is  startling  in  the  reflection 
it  evokes;  for  we  fail  to  understand  how  such  a  motive 
had  the  power  to  induce  Your  Holiness  to  adopt  a 
measure  which  is  so  hazardous,  so  dangerous,  and  so 
prejudicial.  Most  assuredly  the  peace  which  is  irrec- 
oncilable with  the  existence  of  the  Society  is  the  peace 
which  Jesus  Christ  calls  insidious,  false,  deceitful. 
In  a  word  what  the  Brief  designates  as  peace  is  not 
peace;  Pax,  pax  et  non  erat  pax.  It  is  the  peace 
which  vice  and  libertinism  adopt;  it  is  the  peace 
which  cannot  ally  itself  with  virtue,  but  which  on 
the  contrary  has  always  been  the  principal  enemy 
of  virtue. 

"It  is  precisely  that  peace  against  which  the  piety 
of  the  Jesuits  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  have 
declared  an  active,  a  vigorous,  a  bloody  warfare; 
which  they  have  carried  to  the  limit  and  in  which  they 
have  achieved  the  greatest  success.  To  put  an  end 
to  that  peace,  they  have  devoted  their  talents;  have 
undergone  pain  and  suffering.  By  their  zeal  and 
their  eloquence  they  have  striven  to  block  every 
avenue  of  approach,  by  which  this  false  peace  might 
enter  and  rend  the  bosom  of  the  Church;  they  have 
set  the  souls  of  men  free  from  its  thralldom,  and  they 
have  pursued  it  to  its  innermost  lair,  making  light  of 
the  danger  and  expecting  no  other  reward  for  their 
daring,  than  the  hatred  of  the  licentious  and  the 
persecution  of  the  ungodly. 


592  The  Jesuits 

"  An  infinite  number  of  splendid  illustrations  of  their 
courage  might  be  adduced  in  the  long  succession  of 
memorable  achievements  which  have  never  been  inter- 
rupted from  the  first  moment  of  the  Society's  existence 
until  the  fatal  day  when  the  Church  saw  it  die.  If  that 
peace  cannot  co-exist  with  the  Society,  and  if  the 
re-establishment  of  this  pernicious  peace  is  the  motive 
of  the  destruction  of  the  Jesuits,  then  the  victims  are 
crowned  with  glory  and  they  end  their  career  like 
the  Apostles  and  Martyrs;  but  honest  men  are  dis- 
mayed by  this  holocaust  of  piety  and  virtue. 

"  A  peace  which  is  irreconcilable  with  the  Society 
is  not  that  peace  which  unites  hearts;  which  is  helpful 
to  others;  which  each  day  contributes  an  increase  in 
virtue,  piety  and  Christian  charity;  which  reflects 
glory  on  Christianity  and  sheds  splendor  on  our 
holy  religion.  Nor  is  there  need  of  proving  this, 
though  proof  might  be  given,  not  by  a  few  examples 
which  this  Society  could  furnish  from  the  day  of  its 
birth  to  the  fatal  and  ever  deplorable  day  of  its  sup- 
pression, but  by  a  countless  multitude  of  facts  which 
attest  that  the  Jesuits  were  always  and  in  every  clime, 
the  supporters,  the  promoters  and  the  indefatigable 
defenders  of  true  and  solid  peace.  These  facts  are  so 
evident  that  they  carry  conviction  to  every  mind. 

"  In  this  letter  I  am  not  constituting  myself  an 
apologist  of  the  Jesuits;  but  I  am  placing  before  the 
eyes  of  Your  Holiness  the  reasons  which,  in  the  present 
case,  excuse  us  from  obeying.  I  will  not  mention 
place  or  time,  as  it  is  an  easy  thing  for  Your  Holiness 
to  convince  yourself  of  the  truth  of  my  utterance. 
Your  Holiness  is  not  ignorant  of  them. 

"  Moreover,  Holy  Father,  we  have  remarked  with 
terror,  that  this  destructive  Brief  eulogizes  in  the 
highest  way  certain  persons  whose  conduct  never 


The  Execution  593 

merited  praise  from  Clement  XIII,  of  saintly  memory. 
Far  from  doing  so,  he  regarded  it  always  as  his  duty 
to  set  them  aside,  and  to  act  in  their  regard  with  the 
most  absolute  reserve. 

"  This  difference  of  appreciation  necessarily  excites 
attention,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  your  predecessor 
did  not  consider  worthy  of  the  purple  those  whom 
Your  Holiness  seems  to  design  for  the  glory  of  the 
cardinalate.  The  firmness  on  one  side  and  the  conniv- 
ance on  the  other  reveal  themselves  only  too  clearly. 
But  perhaps  an  excuse  might  be  found  for  the  latter, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  which  has  not  been  successfully 
disguised  that  an  alien  influence  guided  the  pen  that 
wrote  the  Brief. 

"  In  a  word,  most  Holy  Father,  the  clergy  of  France, 
which  is  the  most  learned  and  most  illustrious  of 
Holy  Church,  and  which  has  no  other  aim  than  to 
promote  the  glory  of  the  Church,  does  now  judge 
after  deep  reflection  that  the  reception  of  the  Brief 
of  Your  Holiness  will  cast  a  shadow  on  the  glory  of 
the  clergy  of  France ;  and  it  does  not  propose  to  consent 
to  a  measure  which,  in  ages  to  come,  will  tarnish  its 
glory.  By  rejecting  the  Brief  and  by  an  active  resist- 
ance to  it  our  clergy  will  transmit  to  posterity  a 
splendid  example  of  integrity  and  of  zeal  for  the 
Catholic  Faith,  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Church  and 
particularly  for  the  honor  of  its  Visible  Head. 

"  These,  Holy  Father,  are  some  of  the  reasons  which 
determine  us,  myself  and  all  the  clergy  of  this  kingdom, 
never  to  permit  the  publication  of  such  a  Brief,  and  to 
make  known  to  Your  Holiness,  as  I  do  by  this  present 
letter,  that  such  is  my  attitude  and  that  of  all  the 
clergy,  who,  however,  will  never  cease  to  unite  in  prayer 
with  me  to  our  Lord  for  the  sacred  person  of  Your 
Holiness.  We  shall  address  our  humble  supplications 
38 


594  The  Jesuits 

to  the  Divine  Father  of  Light  that  He  may  deign  to 
diffuse  it  so  abundantly  that  the  truth  may  be  dis- 
cerned whose  splendor  has  been  obscure." 

The  Bishop  of  Quebec,  Mgr.  Briand,  refused  to  pro- 
mulgate the  Brief,  and  he  informed  some  of  his  intimate 
friends  that  he  had  no  fear  of  excommunication  in 
doing  so,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  in  constant  com- 
munication with  Pope  Clement  XIV,  who  approved  of 
his  course  of  action.  Associated  with  the  bishop  was 
Governor  Carleton,  who  was  interested  in  the  matter 
for  his  own  personal  reasons.  His  rival,  General 
Amherst,  the  conqueror  of  Quebec,  was  anxious  to 
see  the  Jesuits  driven  out,  so  as  to  secure  their  property 
for  himself.  Carleton,  on  the  contrary,  proposed  to 
keep  it  for  future  educational  purposes.  He  could 
not  seize  it  immediately,  for  the  treaty  at  the  conquest 
had  guaranteed  the  protection  of  the  Canadians  in 
their  religion.  Hence  he  did  not  molest  the  Fathers, 
though  he  refused  to  allow  any  accession  either  of 
novices  or  former  Jesuits  to  their  ranks.  The  result 
was  that  they  gradually  died  out.  The  last  of  all  was 
the  venerable  Casot,  who  gave  up  the  ghost  in  1800 
after  having  distributed  all  his  goods  to  the  poor. 
What  was  not  available  in  that  way  he  conveyed  to  re- 
ligious communities  or  to  churches .  The  relics  of  Brebeuf 
and  Lalemant  are  now  among  the  treasures  of  the 
Hotel-Dieu.  The  Jesuit  College,  which  was  opposite 
the  present  basilica  cathedral,  was  occupied  by  soldiers, 
and  was  first  known  as  the  "  Jesuit  Barracks,"  and 
subsequently  as  the  "  Cheshire  Barracks."  Later  it 
was  a  refuge  for  the  poor,  until  at  length  Cardinal 
Taschereau  ordered  it  to  be  demolished  as  unsafe. 
Thus  the  Brief  was  not  executed  in  Canada.  The 
Jesuits  of  New  Orleans  had  been  already  expelled  by 
Choiseul,  and  there  was  no  one  left  to  whom  it  could 
be  read. 


The  Execution  595 

The  suppression  of  the  Society  in  what  is  now  the 
United  States  is  of  special  interest  to  Americans, 
though  it  possesses  also  a  general  value  in  the  fact  that 
it  furnishes  the  only  account  in  English,  as  far  as  we 
are  aware,  of  what  took  place  in  Belgium  some  years 
before  as  the  prelude  of  the  general  suppression.  This 
is  based  on  the  highest  authority,  for  it  is  the  personal 
narrative  of  John  Carroll,  the  founder  of  the  American 
hierarchy.  He  had  gone  when  a  lad  of  fourteen  to 
St.  Omers  in  French  Flanders,  and  after  his  college 
course  entered  the  Jesuit  novitiate  at  Watten  about 
six  miles  away,  where  he  met  several  of  his  country- 
men who  were  to  distinguish  themselves  later  in 
the  Jesuit  mission  of  Maryland.  They  were  Home, 
Jenkins,  Knight,  Emmot  and  Tyrer.  There  also  was 
the  English  Jesuit,  Reeve,  whose  "  Bible  History " 
was  once  an  indispensable  treasure  in  every  Catholic 
family. 

On  completing  his  novitiate,  Carroll  was  sent  for  his 
theology  and  philosophy  to  Liege,  and  was  ordained 
priest  in  1769,  after  having  proved  his  ability  by  a 
brilliant  public  defense  in  theology.  He  then  taught 
at  St.  Omers  and  was  subsequently  made  professor  of 
philosophy  and  theology  to  the  scholastics  at  Liege. 
He  pronounced  his  four  solemn  vows  as  a  Professed 
Father  on  February  2,  1771,  a  little  more  than  two 
years  before  the  suppression  of  the  Society.  As  St. 
Omer  was  in  France  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from 
it  in  1764.  That  the  occupants  of  the  house  were 
English  did  not  matter.  International  comity  received 
scant  consideration  in  those  days  Every  one  was 
driven  out  except  Father  Brown,  who  was  then  ninety- 
four  years  of  age.  He  was  left  there  alone  to  die. 
The  others,  under  the  guidance  of  Father  Reeve,  crossed 
the  frontier  to  Bruges  where  they  had  been  invited 
by  the  authorities  to  found  a  college. 


596  The  Jesuits 

Here  begins  a  story  told  by  Carroll  of  government 
duplicity  which  shows  how  largely  the  motive  of 
plunder  entered  into  the  whole  movement  of  the 
suppression.  Belgium  was  then  under  the  domination 
of  Austria,  and  the  government  continually  urged 
the  Fathers  to  begin  the  erection  of  a  college  on  a 
grand  scale  at  that  place.  In  all  confidence  that  they 
would  never  be  disturbed,  they  expended  on  the 
first  set  of  buildings  the  sum  of  $37,000  a  considerable 
amount  of  money  in  those  days.  They  would  have 
gone  further  but  their  money  was  exhausted. 

While  teaching  there,  Father  Carroll  was  sent  on  a 
short  tour  through  Europe  as  tutor  to  the  young  son 
of  Lord  Stourton,  an  English  nobleman.  He  passed 
through  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  where  the  Jesuits  were 
still  protected;  was  welcomed  at  the  University  of 
Heidelberg,  and  finally  reached  Rome.  There,  though 
under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Pope,  he  was  compelled  to 
conceal  his  identity  as  a  Jesuit  and  hence  met  none  of 
his  brethren.  He  saw  everywhere  not  only  infamous 
libels  on  the  Society  which  were  for  sale  in  the  streets, 
but  books  and  pamphlets  assailing  the  devotion  to 
the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  and  ridiculing  the  cere- 
monies of  the  Mass.  The  overthrow  of  the  Jesuits 
was  the  common  topic  of  conversation  and  word  from 
the  King  of  Spain  was  momentarily  expected.  Henry 
Stuart,  Cardinal  of  York,  the  last  descendant  of  James 
II,  was  there  at  the  time,  but  as  he  was  a  rancorous 
enemy  of  the  Society,  Father  Carroll  did  not  dare  to 
present  the  young  Catholic  nobleman  to  him.  He 
returned  by  the  way  of  France  and  saw  the  ruins 
everywhere,  and  finally  arrived  at  Bruges  to  take  part 
in  the  tragedy  as  one  of  the  victims. 

The  Brief  was  promulgated  on  August  16,  and  the 
superiors  of  the  two  colleges  at  Bruges,  encouraged  by 
the  general  expectation  of  the  town  that  their  status 


The  Execution  597 

would  not  be  effected,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  presi- 
dent of  the  council  at  Brussels,  offering  their  services  as 
secular  clergy  to  continue  the  work  of  education.  The 
rectors  were  invited  to  Brussels,  and  assured  that  they 
would  be  treated  with  respect,  allowed  to  retain  private 
property  and  be  granted  proper  maintenance.  Even 
after  the  reception  of  the  Brief,  the  Bishop  of  Bruges 
assured  them  that  in  a  few  days  the  excitement  would 
pass  and  everything  would  go  on  as  usual.  Austria, 
however,  had  already  accepted  and  promulgated  the 
Brief. 

The  first  commissioners  of  the  Suppression  threw  up 
the  work  in  disgust.  It  was  then  handed  over  to  a 
coarse  young  fellow  named  Marouex  who  was  anxious 
to  make  a  name  for  himself.  He  succeeded.  Arriving 
at  the  college  on  September  20,  he  summoned  the 
community  to  his  presence  and  ordered  the  Brief 
and  edict  to  be  read.  He  then  forbade  anyone 
to  leave  the  house,  or  to  be  allowed  to  enter, 
or  to  write  any  letters,  or  to  direct  the  college,  or  to 
teach  the  pupils.  He  seized  the  account  books  and 
began  a  hunt  for  hidden  treasures.  Each  member  of 
the  community  was  examined  individually,  put  under 
oath,  and  ordered  to  produce  everything  he  had, 
even  family  letters;  "  which  explains,"  says  Shea, 
"  how  there  is  no  trace  of  Carroll's  letters  from  his 
mother  and  kindred  in  America." 

On  October  14,  Marouex,  accompanied  by  a  squad 
of  soldiers,  burst  into  the  community  rooms  and 
ordered  Fathers  Angier,  Plowden  and  Carroll  to  follow 
him.  He  would  not  even  permit  them  to  go  to  their 
rooms  for  a  moment  to  get  what  they  needed,  but 
sent  them  under  guard  to  wagons  waiting  outside, 
and  hurried  them  off  to  the  Flemish  college,  which 
had  been  already  plundered.  There  they  were  locked 
up  for  several  days  without  a  bed  to  lie  on.  The 


598  The  Jesuits 

community  was  still  there  under  lock  and  key.  Three 
of  them  were  kept  as  hostages  and  the  rest  were 
ordered  out  of  the  country.  Thus  did  Maria 
Theresa  allow  her  beloved  Jesuits  to  be  treated,  in 
return  for  the  benefits  they  had  heaped  on  her  empire 
from  the  time  when  Faber  and  Le  Jay  and  Canisius 
and  their  great  associates  had  saved  it  from  destruc- 
tion. 

Thoroughly  heartbroken,  Carroll  turned  his  steps 
towards  Protestant  England.  Before  leaving  the 
Continent,  he  wrote  the  following  pathetic  letter  to  his 
brother  Daniel,  who  was  in  Maryland.  Because  of 
Carroll's  own  personal  character  and  his  prominence 
in  American  history,  it  is  a  precious  testimonial  of 
love  and  affection  for  the  Society,  as  well  as  a  splendid 
vindication  of  it  for  the  world  at  large.  It  is  dated 
September  n,  1773. 

"  I  was  willing  to  accept  the  vacant  post  of  prefect 
of  the  sodality  here,  but  now  all  room  for  deliberation 
is  over.  The  enemies  of  the  Society  and,  above  all, 
the  unrelenting  perseverance  of  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  ministries,  with  the  passiveness  of  the 
court  of  Vienna  have  at  last  obtained  their  ends; 
and  our  so  long  persecuted,  and,  I  must  add,  holy 
Society  is  no  more.  God's  holy  will  be  done  and 
may  His  Name  be  blessed  for  ever  and  ever!  This 
fatal  blow  was  struck  on  July  2 1 ,  but  was  kept  secret 
at  Rome  till  August  16,  and  was  only  made  known  to  me 
on  September  5.  I  am  not,  and  perhaps  never  shall 
be,  recovered  from  the  shock  of  this  dreadful  intelli- 
gence. The  greatest  blessing  which  in  my  estimation 
I  could  receive  from  God  would  be  immediate  death, 
but  if  He  deny  me  this,  may  His  holy  and  adorable 
designs  on  me  be  wholly  fulfilled. 

"  I  find  it  impossible  to  understand  that  Divine 
Providence  should  permit  such  an  end  to  a  body, 


The  Execution  599 

wholly  devoted,  and  striving  with  the  most  dis- 
interested charity  to  procure  every  comfort  and 
advantage  to  their  neighbors,  whether  by  preaching, 
*  teaching,  catechizing,  missions,  visiting  hospitals, 
prisons  and  in  every  other  function  of  spiritual  and 
corporal  mercy.  Such  have  I  beheld  it  in  every  part 
of  my  travels,  the  first  of  all  ecclesiastical  bodies  in 
the  esteem  and  confidence  of  the  faithful,  and  cer- 
tainly the  most  laborious.  What  will  become  of  our 
flourishing  congregations  with  you  and  those  culti- 
vated by  the  German  Fathers?  These  reflections 
crowd  so  fast  upon  me,  that  I  almost  lose  my  senses. 
But  I  will  endeavor  to  suppress  them  for  a  few  moments. 
You  see  I  am  now  my  own  master  and  left  to  my  own 
direction.  In  returning  to  Maryland,  I  shall  have 
the  comfort  of  not  only  being  with  you,  but  of  bemg 
farther  out  of  reach  of  scandal  and  defamation,  and 
removed  from  the  scenes  of  distress  of  many  of  my 
dearest  friends  whom  I  shall  not  be  able  to  relieve. 
I  shall  therefore  most  certainly  sail  for  Maryland  early 
next  spring  if  I  possibly  can." 

At  the  time  of  the  Suppression  there  were  nineteen 
Jesuits  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania;  as  it  was  then 
three  years  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
they  were  still  English  subjects.  On  October  6, 
1773,  Bishop  Challoner,  the  Vicar  of  London,  though 
Chandlery  in  his  "  Fasti  breviores "  says  it  was 
Talbot,  sent  them  the  following  letter: 

1  To    Messrs    the    Missioners    in    Maryland    and 
Pennsylvania. 

"  To  obey  the  order  which  I  have  received  from 
Rome,  I  notify  to  you,  by  this  the  Breve,  of  the  total 
dissolution  of  the  Society  of  Jesus;  and  send  withal  a 
form  of  declaration  of  your  obedience  and  submission, 
to  which  you  are  all  to  subscribe,  as  your  brethren 


600  The  Jesuits 

have  done  here,  and  send  me  back  the  formula  with 
the  subscription  of  you  all,  as  I  am  to  send  them  up  to 
Rome. 

"  Ever  yours, 

"Richard  Deboren.  V.  Ap." 

In  passing,  it  may  be  remarked  that  as  a  missive 
from  a  Superior  to  a  number  of  devoted  priests  against 
whom  not  a  word  of  reproach  had  been  ever  uttered 
and  whose  lives  were  wrecked  by  this  official  act 
this  communication  of  the  vicar  cannot  be  cited  as  a 
manifestation  of  excessive  paternal  tenderness. 

The  formula  to  which  they  were  required  to  sub- 
scribe, was,  in  its  English  translation,  as  follows: 

11  We  the  undersigned  missionary  priests  of  the 
London  District  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania, 
hitherto  known  as  the  Clerks  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
having  been  informed  by  the  declaration  and  publi- 
cation of  the  Apostolic  Brief  issued  on  July  21,  1773, 
by  our  Most  Holy  Lord  Pope  Clement  XIV,  by  which 
he  completely  suppresses  and  extinguishes  the  afore- 
said Congregation  and  Society  in  the  whole  world, 
and  orders  the  priests  to  be  entirely  subject  to  the 
rule  and  authority  of  the  Bishops  as  part  of  the  secular 
clergy,  we  the  aforesaid,  fully  and  sincerely,  submit 
to  the  Brief,  and  humbly  acquiescing  to  the  complete 
suppression  of  the  said  Society,  submit  ourselves 
entirely  as  secular  priests  to  the  jurisdiction  and  rule 
of  the  above  mentioned  Bishop,  the  Vicar  Apostolic." 

In  this  document  of  the  vicar  there  are  some  features 
which  are  worthy  of  consideration.  The  first  is  that 
it  was  not  communicated  personally  to  those  interested 
but  through  the  post  —  and  it  might  have  been  a 
forgery.  Secondly,  it  was  not  correct  in  saying  that 
it  was  issued  on  July  21,  1773.  It  was  signed  on  July 
21  but  issued  or  published  only  on  August  16  of  that 


The  Execution  601 

year,  and  it  was  not  effective  or  binding  until  that 
date.  Thirdly,  there  was  no  mention  of  the  renewal 
of  faculties  to  the  superior  whose  ecclesiastical  char- 
acter had  now  been  completely  transformed  from  that 
of  a  religious  to  a  secular  priest;  and  they  were  thus 
obliged  to  presume  that  they  were  not  suspended  and 
that  their  power  of  transmitting  faculties  was  not 
withdrawn.  Fourthly,  before  the  Suppression,  the 
vicar  Apostolic  had  warned  the  Propaganda  that  he 
could  do  nothing  to  aid  the  Maryland  missioners, 
and  after  the  Revolution  he  refused  absolutely  to 
have  any  communication  with  them.  Thus,  there 
was  no  possibility  of  fulfilling  the  injunction  of  becoming 
secular  priests,  as  the  Brief  enjoined. 

As  far  as  the  Jesuit  habit  was  concerned  there  was  no 
difficulty,  for  there  is  no  distinctive  habit  in  the  Society. 
The  Jesuits  are  ecclesiastically  in  the  rank  of  "  clerici 
regulares,"  and  can  wear  the  garb  of  any  secular 
priest,  just  as  they  do,  at  present,  in  many  parts  of 
the  world.  St.  Francis  Xavier  once  wore  green  silk, 
and  in  our  own  days,  the  English  Jesuit  dress  is  rather 
an  academic  gown  than  a  cassock.  Again  in  Mary- 
land and  Pennsylvania,  there  were  at  that  time 
no  secular  priests;  the  missionaries  were  all  Jesuits, 
and  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  get  any  other 
ecclesiastical  attire.  What  they  wore  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  used  only  in  ecclesiastical  functions. 
An  analogous  obstacle  presented  itself  in  the  name. 
The  people  continued  to  recognize  them  as  Jesuits, 
and  it  would  have  been  very  imprudent  to  publicly 
announce  that  they  were  no  longer  such.  There  are 
several  letters  extant,  however,  in  which  the  Jesuits 
advise  their  friends  to  drop  the  S.  J.  in  their  correspond- 
ence, but  that  is  not  unusual  even  now.  Exteriorly, 
the  life  of  those  old  Maryland  Jesuits  continued  to  be 
precisely  the  same  as  it  had  always  been. 


602  The  Jesuits 

Moreover  they  retained  possession  of  their  property, 
for  unlike  the  Jesuits  of  Canada,  Illinois  and  Louisiana, 
they  held  their  estates  by  personal,  not  by  corporate 
title;  and  regularly  deeded  their  possession  by  will  or 
transfer  from  one  to  another.  In  Maryland,  it  was 
impossible  to  do  otherwise,  for  the  English  government 
did  not  recognize  the  Jesuits  as  constituting  a  legal 
association. 

Indeed,  Challoner  informs  Talbot  that  he  considered 
the  promulgation  of  the  Brief  as  enjoined  by  the  Pope 
would  be  fraught  with  serious  danger,  and  hence  he 
was  convinced  that  the  method  adopted  for  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  Jesuits  of  England  and  her  colonies  was  the 
only  one  possible  and  that  the  Pope  would  be  so 
advised. 

A  lament  from  one  of  the  Maryland  missionaries  may 
be  of  interest.  Father  Mosley  is  the  writer.  "I  cannot 
think  of  it,"  he  says,  "without  tears  in  my  eyes.  Yes, 
dear  Sister,  our  Body  or  Factory  is  dissolved  of  which 
y<5ur  two  brothers  are  members;  and  for  myself, 
I  know  I  am  an  unworthy  one  when  I  see  so  many 
worthy,  saintly,  pious,  learned,  laborious  missionaries 
dead  and  alive  who  were  or  who  have  been  members 
of  the  same,  for  the  last  two  ages.  I  know  no  fault 
that  we  are  guilty  of.  I  am  convinced  that  our  labors 
are  pure,  upright  and  sincere  for  God's  honor  and  our 
neighbor's  good.  What  our  Supreme  Judge  on  earth 
may  think  of  our  labors  is  a  mystery  to  me.  It  is  true 
he  has  stigmatized  us  through  the  world  with  infamy, 
and  declared  us  unfit  for  our  business  or  his  service. 
Our  dissolution  is  known  through  the  whole  world; 
it  is  in  every  newspaper,  and  I  am  ashamed  to  show 
my  face.  As  we  are  judged  unserviceable,  we  labor 
with  little  heart,  and  what  is  worse,  by  no  Rule. 

"  To  my  great  sorrow,  the  Society  is  abolished,  and 
with  it  must  die  all  the  zeal  th&t  was  founded  and 


The  Execution  603 

raised  on  it.  Labor  for  our  neighbor  is  a  Jesuit's 
pleasure;  destroy  the  Jesuit  and  labor  is  painful  and 
disagreeable.  I  must  allow  that  what  was  my  pleasure 
is  now  irksome.  Every  fatigue  I  underwent  caused  a 
secret  and  inward  satisfaction;  it  is  now  unpleasant 
and  disagreeable.  I  disregarded  this  unhealthy  climate, 
and  all  its  agues  and  fevers  which  have  really  paid  me 
to  my  heart's  content,  for  the  sake  of  my  rule.  The 
night  was  as  agreeable  as  the  day;  frost  and  cold  as 
a  warm  fire  and  a  soft  bed;  the  excessive  heats  as 
welcome  as  a  cool  shade  or  pleasant  breezes, 
but  now  the  scene  is  changed.  The  Jesuit  is 
metamorphosed  into  I  know  not  what.  He  is  a 
monster;  a  scarecrow  in  my  idea.  With  joy  I  impaired 
my  health  and  broke  my  constitution  in  the  care  of 
my  flock.  It  was  the  Jesuit's  call;  it  was  his  whole 
aim  and  business.  The  Jesuit  is  no  more.  He  now 
endeavors  to  repair  his  little  remains  of  health  and  his 
shattered  constitution,  as  he  has  no  rule  calling  him 
to  expose  it. 

"Joseph  Mosley,  S.  J.  forever,  as  I  think  and  hope." 
It  must  have  been  a  very  hard  trial  for  the  Jesuit 
vicars  Apostolic  in  the  various  foreign  missions  to  be 
the  executioners  of  their  own  brethren  in  carrying  out 
this  decree.  One  of  these  sad  scenes  occurred  in 
Nankin,  where  Mgr.  Laimbeckhoven,  S.  J.,  was 
vicar.  He  did  not  live  to  see  the  Restoration,  for  he 
died  in  1787. 


CHAPTER  XX 


Failure  of  the  Papal  Brief  to  give  peace  to  the  Church  —  Liguori 
and  Tanucci  —  Joseph  II  destroying  the  Church  in  Austria  —  Vol- 
taireanism  in  Portugal  —  Illness  of  Clement  XIV  —  Death  —  Accu- 
sations of  poisoning  —  Election  of  Pius  VI  —  The  Synod  of  Pistoia  — 
Febronianism  in  Austria  —  Visit  of  Pius  VI  to  Joseph  II  —  The  Punc- 
tation  of  Ems  —  Spain,  Sardinia,  Venice,  Sicily  in  opposition  to  the 
Pope  —  Political  collapse  in  Spain  —  Fall  of  Pombal  —  Liberation  of 
his  Victims  —  Protest  of  de  Guzman  —  Death  of  Joseph  II  —  Occu- 
pations of  the  dispersed  Jesuits  —  The  Theologia,  Wiceburgensis  — 
Feller  —  Beauregard's  Prophecy —  Zaccaria  —  Tiraboschi  —  Boscovich 
—  Missionaries  —  Denunciation  of  the  Suppression  in  the  French 
Assembly  —  Slain  in  the  French  Revolution  —  Destitute  Jesuits  in 
Poland  —  Shelter  in  Russia. 

CLEMENT  XIV  did  not  give  peace  to  the  Church  as 
he  had  hoped.  On  the  contrary,  distressing  scandals 
were  continually  occurring  in  the  Holy  City  itself 
under  his  very  eyes.  Infamous  books  and  pamphlets 
directed  against  the  Church  were  hawked  about  the 
streets,  and  actors  and  buffoons  parodied  the  most 
sacred  ceremonies  in  the  public  squares.  Elsewhere 
the  same  conditions  obtained.  Tanucci  who  had 
governed  Naples  for  over  forty  years  was  continuing 
his  ruthless  persecution  of  every  thing  holy,  and  en- 
riching himself  by  the  spoliation  of  ecclesiastical 
property.  Even  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori  could  not 
obtain  from  the  Pope  the  recognition  of  the 
Redemptorists  as  a  congregation  because  Tanucci 
opposed  it.  Doctrinal  views  leading  to  schism  in  the 
Church  were  openly  advocated  in  the  schools  and 
universities  of  Austria,  in  spite  of  the  entreaties  and 
threats  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  Maria  Theresa  had 
proved  feeble  or  false,  and  her  son  Joseph  II  was 

[6041 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    605 

in  league  with  the  Bourbon  princes  in  their  work  of 
destruction.  In  Portugal,  Pombal  was  still  raging  like 
a  wild  beast;  filling  the  schools  with  the  disciples  of 
Voltaire,  flouting  the  papal  nuncio,  and  keeping  in 
dark  and  filthy  dungeons  the  members  of  the  detested 
Order  which  he  had  exterminated.  The  Philosophers 
and  Jansenists  were  rejoicing  in  their  triumph,  and 
were  suppressing  all  religious  communities  and  seizing 
their  property;  the  morality  and  orthodoxy  of  Poland 
were  being  rapidly  corrupted ;  Catherine  of  Russia  was 
creating  bishops  and  establishing  sees  as  the  fancy 
prompted  her,  and  Freemason  lodges  were  multiplying 
all  over  Europe.  Worst  of  all,  the  Pope's  own  house- 
hold with  but  few  exceptions  kept  aloof  from  him  and 
were  silent  about  what  he  had  done,  while  many 
bishops  of  various  countries  of  Europe  and  the  entire 
episcopacy  of  France  endorsed  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed in  the  terrible  letter  of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
denouncing  the  Suppression. 

Ineffably  shocked  by  all  this,  the  Pope  began  to 
show  signs  of  depression,  and  everyone  was  in  con- 
sternation. St.  Alphonsus  Liguori,  especially,  was 
anxious  about  him  and  kept  continually  repeating: 
"Pray  for  the  Pope;  he  is  distressed;  for  there  is 
nowhere  the  slightest  glimmer  of  peace  for  the  Church. 
He  is  praying  for  death,  so  crushed  is  he  by  the  sorrows 
that  are  overwhelming  the  Church;  he  remains  con- 
tinually in  seclusion;  gives  audience  to  no  one;  and 
attends  to  no  business.  I  have  heard  things  about 
him  from  those  who  are  at  Rome  that  would  bring 
tears  to  your  eyes."  His  mind  was  unbalanced,  and 
one  of  his  successors,  Pius  VII,  related  later  what  he 
had  been  told  by  a  prelate  who  was  present  at  the 
signing  of  the  fatal  Brief:  "  As  soon  as  he  had  affixed 
his  signature  to  the  paper  he  threw  the  pen  to  one  side 
and  the  paper  to  the  other.  He  had  lost  his  mind." 


606  The  Jesuits 

Before  that,  Pius  had  said  the  same  thing  to  Cardinal 
Pacca  at  Fontainebleau,  when  in  an  agony  of  remorse 
for  having  signed  the  Concordat  with  Napoleon: 
"  I  cannot  get  the  cruel  thought  out  of  my  mind. 
I  cannot  sleep  at  night  and  I  am  haunted  by  the 
fear  of  going  mad  and  ending  like  Clement  XIV." 
Another  writer  who  received  his  information  from 
Gregory  XVI  tells  the  same  sad  story  (de  Ravignan, 
Clement  XIII  et  Clement  XIV,  I,  452).  St.  Alphonsus 
Liguori  was  with  the  Pope  when  he  died,  but  according 
to  a  Redemptorist  writer,  it  was  "  in  spirit,"  and  not 
by  bodily  bilocation.  The  end  came  in  September 
22,  1774,  thirteen  months  after  the  unfortunate  Brief 
was  issued. 

Of  course,  when  he  died,  the  report  went  abroad 
that  the  Jesuits  had  poisoned  him,  by  .administering 
a  dose  of  aqua  toffana,  but  although  no  one  has  ever 
found  out  what  aqua  toffana  is  or  was,  and  as  there 
were  no  Jesuits  in  Rome  at  the  time,  the  story  was 
nevertheless  believed  by  many  and  was  adduced  as 
a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Pope  in  suppressing  the 
iniquitous  organization.  The  Jansenists  even  made  a 
saint  of  the  dead  Pontiff  and  circulated  marvellous 
romances  about  the  incorruption  of  his  body  and  the 
miracles  that  were  wrought  at  his  tomb. 

Cantu  in  his  "  Storia  dei  cent'  anni  "  says  that  "  the 
Pope  whose  health  and  mind  were  grievously  affected, 
died  in  delirium,  haunted  by  phantoms,  and  begging 
for  pardon.  It  was  claimed  that  he  had  been  poisoned 
by  the  Jesuits,  but  the  truth  is  that  the  physicians 
found  no  trace  of  poison  in  the  body.  Had  the  Jesuits 
possessed  the  power  or  the  will  to  do  so,  one  might 
ask  why  they  did  not  do  it  before  and  not  after  Clement 
had  struck  them.  But  passion  often  makes  light  of 
common  sense."  The  post-mortem  which  was  made 
in  the  presence  of  a  great  many  people  showed  that 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    607 

the  sickness  to  which  he  had  succumbed  arose  from 
scorbutic  and  hemorrhoidal  conditions  from  which  he 
had  been  suffering  for  many  years,  and  which  were 
aggravated  by  excessive  work  and  the  system  he 
had  followed  of  producing  artificial  perspiration  even 
in  the  heats  of  summer." 

The  poor  Pope  had  exclaimed  before  he  signed  the 
Brief:  "  Questa  soppressione  mi  dara  la  morte " 
(this  suppression  will  kill  me.)  "  After  it,"  says  Saint- 
Priest  in  his  '  Chute  des  Jesuites,'  "  he  would  pace 
his  apartments  in  agony,  crying:  '  Mercy!  Mercy! 
They  forced  me  to  do  it.  Compulsus  fed.'  However, 
at  the  last  moment  his  reason  returned.  He  showed 
his  indignation  at  a  proposal  made  to  him  even  then, 
to  raise  some  of  the  enemies  of  the  Society  to  the 
cardinalate  and  drove  them  from  his  bedside  with 
loathing. 

Bernis,  the  French  ambassador  at  Rome,  wrote  to 
Louis  XV  that  "  the  Vicar  of  Christ  prayed  like  the 
Redeemer  for  his  implacable  enemies,"  and  insinuated 
that    he    was    poisoned.     Knowing    this    d'Alembert 
warned  Frederick  II  to  be  on  his  guard  against  a  similar 
fate,  but  the  king  replied:     "There  is  nothing  more 
false  than  the  story  of  the  poisoning;  the  truth  is 
that  he  was  profoundly  hurt  by  the  coldness  mani- 
fested by  the  cardinals  and  he  often  reproached  him- 
self, for  having  sacrificed  an  Order  like  that  of  the 
Jesuits,  to  satisfy  the  whim  of  his  rebellious  children." 
Becantini  (Storia  di  Pio  VI,  i,  31)  says:     "  Nowadays 
no  one  believes  the  story  of  the  poisoning  of  Clement 
XIV.     Even  Bernis  who  first  stood  for  it,  afterwards 
disavowed    it."     Cancelleri    one    of    the    most    dis- 
tinguished savants  of  Italy  denies  the  fact;  so  does 
Gavani,  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  Church  and  the  Society. 
Finally,  Salcetto  the  physician  of  the  Apostolic  palace, 
and  Adinolfi  the  Pope's  own  doctor,  in  their  official 


608  The  Jesuits 

report  to  the  majordomo,  Archinto,  declare  it  to 
have  been  an  absolutely  natural  death  and  they 
explain  that  the  corruption  which  set  in  was  due  to 
the  excessive  heat  that  prevailed  at  the  time. 

It  was  even  said  that  the  Pope  had  expressed  to 
the  General  of  the  Conventuals,  Marzoni,  a  fear  that 
he  had  been  poisoned.  Whereupon  Marzoni  caused 
the  following  statement  to  be  published : 

"I,  the  undersigned  Minister  General  of  the  Order 
of  the  Conventuals  of  St.  Francis,  fully  aware  that  by 
my  oath  I  call  the  sovereign  and  true  God  to  witness 
what  I  say;  and  being  certain  of  what  I  say,  I  now 
without  any  constraint  and  in  the  presence  of  God  who 
knows  that  I  do  not  lie,  do  by  these  words,  which  are 
absolutely  true,  and  which  I  write  and  trace  with  my 
own  hand,  swear  and  attest  to  the  whole  universe, 
that  never  in  any  circumstance  whatever  did  Clement 
XIV  ever  say  to  me  either  that  he  had  been  poisoned 
or  that  he  felt  the  slightest  symptom  of  poison.  I 
swear  also  that  I  never  said  to  any  one  soever  that 
the  same  Clement  XIV  assured  me  in  confidence 
that  he  had  been  poisoned  or  had  felt  the  effects  of 
poison.  So  help  me  God. 

"Given  in  the  Convent  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  at 
Rome  July  27,  1775. 

"  I,  Bro.  Louis  -  Maria  Marzoni 

"Minister  General  of  the  Order." 

Thus  Clement  XIV,  far  from  giving  peace  to  the 
Church,  left  a  heritage  of  woe  to  his  successor,  Angelo 
Braschi,  who  was  elected  Pope  on  February  15,  1775, 
and  took  the  name  of  Pius  VI.  The  new  Pope  was 
painfully  conscious  that  an  error  had  been  committed 
by  suppressing  an  Order  without  trial  and  without 
even  condemnation,  and  that  a  reflection  had  been 
cast  upon  a  great  number  of  Pontiffs  who  had  been 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    609 

unstinted  in  their  praise  of  it,  no  one  more  so  than 
Clement's  immediate  predecessor.  The  act  had  also 
given  to  the  Jansenists  a  terrific  instrument  in  the 
implied  approval  of  them  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff. 
They  became  more  aggressive  than  ever  and  organized 
their  forces  to  introduce  their  doctrines  into  Italy  itself. 

By  a  curious  coincidence  the  leader  of  the  move- 
ment was  of  the  same  family  as  the  General  of  the 
suppressed  Jesuits :  Scipio  Ricci,  the  Bishop  of  Pistoia. 
Supporting  him  in  the  civic  world  was  the  Grand  Duke 
of  Tuscany  who  was  the  brother  of  Joseph  II  of 
Austria.  Ricci  convened  the  famous  Synod  of  Pistoia, 
on  July  31,  1786.  No  doubt  July  31  was  chosen  pur- 
posely; it  was  the  feast  of  St.  Ignatius.  There  were 
247  members  in  attendance,  all  exclusively  Jansenists 
and  regalists.  The  four  Gallican  Articles -were  endorsed 
and  among  the  measures  was  that  of  conferring  the 
right  on  the  civil  authority  to  create  matrimonial 
impediments.  It  advocated  the  reduction  of  all 
religious  orders  to  one;  the  abolition  of  perpetual 
vows;  a  vernacular  liturgy;  the  removal  of  all  altars 
but  one  from  the  church;  etc.  The  Acts  of  the  synod 
were  promulgated  with  the  royal  imprimatur.  Indeed 
Pius  VI  found  himself  compelled  to  condemn  eighty- 
five  of  the  synod's  propositions. 

Worse  than  this  was  the  Febronianism  of  Austria, 
which  went  far  beyond  the  Gallicanism  of  France  or 
Italy  in  its  rebellious  aggressiveness.  It  maintained 
that  the  primacy  of  Rome  had  no  basis  in  the  authority 
of  Christ;  that  the  papacy  was  not  restricted  to  Rome, 
but  could  be  placed  anywhere;  that  Rome  was  merely 
a  centre  with  which  the  individual  churches  could 
be  united;  that  the  papal  power  was  simply  adminis- 
trative and  unifying  and  not  jurisdictional;  that  the 
papal  power  of  condemning  heresies,  confirming  epis- 
copal elections,  naming  coadjutors,  transferring  and 

39 


610  The  Jesuits 

removing  bishops,  erecting  primatial  sees,  etc.,  all 
rested  on  the  False  Decretals.  It  was  maintained 
that  the  Pope  could  issue  no  decrees  for  the  Universal 
Church,  and  that  even  the  decrees  of  general  councils 
were  not  binding  until  approved  of  by  the  individual 
churches. 

In  vain  Clement  XIV  had  begged  Maria  Theresa 
to  check  the  movement.  She  was  absolutely  in  the 
power  of  her  son  Joseph  II,  whose  very  first  ordinances 
forbade  the  reception  of  papal  decrees  without  the 
government's  sanction.  The  bishops,  he  ruled,  were 
not  to  apply  to  the  Pope  for  faculties;  they  could  not 
even  issue  instructions  to  their  own  flocks  without 
permission  of  the  civil  authority.  He  established 
parishes,  assigned  fast  days,  determined  the  number 
of  Masses  to  be  said,  and  sermons  to  be  preached. 
He  even  decided  how  many  candles  were  to  be  lighted 
on  the  altar;  he  made  marriage  a  civil  contract  and 
abolished  ecclesiastical  ceremonies. 

In  the  hope  that  a  personal  appeal  might  avail, 
the  Pope  determined  to  make  a  journey  to  Vienna  to 
entreat  the  emperor  to  desist.  He  arrived  there  on 
March  22,  1782,  and  was  courteously  received  by 
Joseph  himself,  but  brutally  by  his  minister,  Kaunitz, 
who  forbade  any  ecclesiastic  to  present  himself  in 
the  city  while  the  Pope  was  there.  Pius  remained  a 
month  in  the  capital  and  succeeded  only  in  extracting  a 
promise  that  nothing  would  be  done  against  the 
Faith  or  the  respect  due  the  Holy  See.  How  far  the 
royal  word  was  kept  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact 
that  after  accompanying  the  Pope  as  far  as  the 
Monastery  of  Marianbrunn  Joseph  suppressed  that 
establishment  an  hour  after  the  Pope  had  resumed  his 
journey  to  Rome. 

In  Germany  the  three  ecclesiastical  Electors  of 
Mayence,  Treves  and  Cologne  with  the  Archbishop  of 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    611 

Salzburg  met  in  a  convention  at  Ems  in  1786,  and 
attempted  to  curtail  the  powers  of  the  Pope  in  dealing 
with  bishops.  That  assembly  was  also  strongly  Jansen- 
istic.  Thirty-one  of  its  articles  were  directed  against 
the  Pope.  Pacca,  the  papal  nuncio,  was  not  even 
received  by  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  and  three  of 
the  Elector  bishops  refused  to  honor  his  credentials. 
The  famous  "  Punctation  of  Ems,"  which  consisted  of 
twenty-three  articles,  declared  that  German  arch- 
bishops were  independent  of  Rome,  because  of  the 
"  False  Decretals."  They  pronounced  for  an  abolition 
of  all  direct  communication  with  Rome;  all  monasteries 
were  to  be  subject  to  the  bishops;  religious  orders 
were  to  have  no  superior  generals  residing  outside  of 
Germany;  Rome's  exclusive  power  of  granting  faculties 
was  denied;  Papal  Bulls  were  binding  only  after 
the  bishop  of  the  diocese  had  given  his  placet;  all 
Apostolic  nunciatures  were  to  be  abolished,  etc.  In 
brief,  the  synod,  or  "  Congress  "  as  it  was  called,  aimed 
at  establishing  a  schismatical  church.  But  the  Pope's 
remarkable  letter  to  the  dissidents  and  the  progress 
of  the  French  Revolution,  which  was  then  raging 
furiously,  prevented  the  application  anywhere  of  the 
doctrines  put  forth  at  the  meeting. 

Spain,  Sardinia,  Venice  and  Sicily  were  all  in  this 
movement  against  the  Church,  and  Ferdinand  IV 
of  Sicily  claimed  the  right  of  appointment  to  all 
ecclesiastical  benefices,  as  well  as  the  power  to  nullify 
all  Papal  Briefs  which  had  not  received  his  approval. 

Nor  did  the  Brief  of  Suppression  contribute  to  the 
political  stability  of  the  nations.  In  Naples,  for 
example,  Tanucci  was  flung  from  power  when  the 
young  king  married  an  archduchess  of  Austria;  so  that 
he  disappeared  from  the  scene  three  years  after  the 
suppression  of  the  Society.  In  1798  the  Bourbons 
fled  from  Naples;  the  city  was  given  over  to  a  mob 


612  The  Jesuits 

directed  by  an  innkeeper  called  Michael -the  Madman; 
the  Duke  della  Torre  and  his  brother  were  burned 
alive  in  the  public  square;  the  Senate  was  dissolved; 
the  palaces  were  pillaged;  a  republic  was  proclaimed 
and  the  whole  Peninsula  of  Italy  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  French. 

Charles  III  of  Spain  died  in  1788,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Charles  IV,  whom  Arnado  describes  as  more  deficient 
in  character  and  ability  than  his  father.  The  rude 
Florida  Blanca,  who  was  so  conspicuous  for  his 
brutality  in  terrorizing  Clement  XIV,  was  thrown  out 
of  office>  by  the  inept  Godoy,  who  allied  Spain  with 
France  against  England,  and  brought  on  the  disaster 
of  Trafalgar.  The  king  was  driven  from  his  throne  and 
country  by  his  rebellious  son,  Ferdinand,  and  then 
laid  his  royal  crown  at  the  feet  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
Since  that  time,  the  country  has  been  in  a  ferment 
because  its  politics  are  filled  with  the  ideas  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  of  English  Liberalism. 

In  Portugal,  retribution  came  at  a  rapid  pace. 
Pombal  fell  from  power  in  1777  on  the  death  of  the 
king.  He  had  been  detected  in  a  plot  to  have  the 
young  Prince  of  Beira  succeed  to  the  throne  to  the 
exclusion  of  Queen  Maria.  It  was  possibly  with  the 
same  end  in  view  that  he  had  endeavored  to  start  a 
war  with  Spain.  He  had  seized  Spanish  posts  in 
America,  mobilized  troops  and  fortified  Lisbon,  but 
hostilities  were  never  declared.  Queen  Maria's  first 
act  at  her  accession  was  to  open  Pomb%al's  dungeons. 
Eight  hundred  men  of  all  classes  issued  from  these 
sepulchres  in  which  some  of  them  had  been  for  eighteen 
years  without  a  trial.  They  were  like  ghosts;  emaci- 
ated; hollow-eyed  and  ghastly;  some  were  sightless, 
many  were  half-naked.  Among  them  were  sixty 
Jesuits.  The  populace  were  so  infuriated  at  the 
horrible  spectacle  that  Pombal  feared  to  venture  into 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    613 

the  street.  He  might  have  been  torn  to  pieces,  and 
he  was  conducted  under  guard  to  his  country  estates. 
Father  Oliviera,  the  confessor  of  the  queen,  was 
installed  in  court,  and  the  venerable  Father  de  Guzman 
issued  the  following  statement  to  the  public: 

"  At  the  age  of  eighty-one  and  at  the  point  of  appear- 
ing before  the  tribunal  of  Divine  Justice,  John  de 
Guzman,  the  last  assistant  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  for 
the  provinces  and  dominions  of  Portugal,  would  believe 
himself  guilty  of  an  unpardonable  sin  of  omission,  if, 
in  neglecting  to  have  recourse  to  the  throne  of  Your 
Majesty  where  clemency  and  justice  reign,  he  did  not 
place  at  your  feet,  this  humble  petition  in  the  name  of 
six  hundred  subjects  of  Your  Majesty,  the  unfortunate 
remnants  of  a  wrong  inflicted  on  them. 

"  He  entreats  Your  Majesty  by  the  Sacred  Heart  of 
Jesus  Christ,  by  that  tender  love  which  Your  Majesty 
bears  to  the  August  Queen,  His  mother,  and  to  the 
illustrious  King  Don  Pedro,  to  the  princes  and 
princesses  of  the  royal  family,  that  you  would  deign 
and  even  command  that  the  trial  of  so  many  of  the 
faithful  subjects  of  Your  Majesty,  who  have  been 
branded  with  infamy  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  be  now 
reviewed.  They  are  groaning  under  the  accusation 
of  having  committed  outrages  and  crimes  which  the 
very  savages  would  shrink  from  even  imagining,  and 
which  no  human  heart  could  ever  conceive.  They 
lament  and  moan  that  they  were  condemned  without 
even  having  been  brought  to  trial,  without  being  heard 
and  without  being  allowed  to  make  any  defense. 
Those  who  have  now  issued  from  prison  are  all  in 
accord  in  this  matter,  and  unanimously  attest,  that 
during  all  the  time  of  their  imprisonment,  they  have 
not  even  seen  the  face  of  any  judge. 

"  On  his  part,  your  suppliant,  who  is  now  making 
this  appeal,  and  who  for  many  years  occupied  a  position 


614  The  Jesuits 

where  he  could  acquire  an  intimate  knowledge  of  what 
was  going  on,  is  ready  to  swear  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  that  the  superiors  and  members  of  the  Spanish 
assistancy  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  were  without  reproach. 
He  and  all  the  other  exiles  are  ready  to  undergo 
sufferings  more  rigorous  than  any  to  which  they  have 
hitherto  been  subjected,  if  a  single  individual  has 
ever  been  guilty  of  the  least  crime  against  the  State. 

41  Moreover,  your  suppliant  and  his  brethren,  the 
chief  superiors  of  the  Society,  have  been  examined 
in  Rome,  again  and  again,  in  the  most  searching 
manner,  and  have  been  declared  innocent.  Pope 
Pius  VI,  now  gloriously  reigning,  has  seen  the  minutes 
of  those  investigations,  and  Your  Majesty  will  find  in 
that  great  Pontiff  an  enlighte'ned  witness  whose 
integrity  nothing  on  earth  can  equal;  and  at  the  same 
time  you  will  find  a  judge  who  could  not  commit 
a  wrong  without  rendering  himself  guilty  of  an  un- 
paralleled iniquity. 

"  Deign,  then,  Your  Majesty,  to  extend  to  us  that 
clemency  which  belongs  to  you  as  does  your  throne; 
deign  to  hearken  to  the  prayers  of  so  many  unfortu- 
nates, whose  innocence  has  been  proven,  and  who  have 
never  ceased  in  the  midst  of  their  sufferings  to  be  the 
faithful  subjects  of  Your  Majesty;  and  who  could  never 
falter  or  fail  an  instant,  in  the  love  that  they  have 
from  childhood  entertained  for  the  royal  family." 

This  appeal  had  its  effect.  An  enquiry  was  ordered, 
and  in  October  1780  a  revision  of  the  trial  of  the  alleged 
conspirators  of  1758  was  begun.  On  April  3,  1781,  the 
court  announced  that  "all  those,  either  living  or  dead, 
who  had  been  imprisoned  or  executed  in  virtue  of  the 
sentence  of  January  12, 1759,  were  absolutely  innocent." 
Pombal  himself  was  put  on  trial,  found  guilty,  and  con- 
demned to  receive  "an  exemplary  punishment."  He 
escaped  imprisonment  on  account  of  his  age,  but  he 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    615 

died  of  leprosy  on  May  8,  1782.  His  corpse  lay 
unburied  until  the  Society  which  he  had  crushed  was 
restored  thirty-one  years  later  to  its  former  place  in 
Portugal.  One  of  its  first  duties  was  to  sing  a  Requiem 
Mass  over  his  remains.  The  details  of  the  trial  were 
suppressed  at  the  request  of  the  Pope,  for  the  reason 
that  too  many  prominent  personages  in  the  Church 
were  implicated.  There  was  another  reason.  The 
spirit  of  Pombal  had  so  thoroughly  impregnated  the 
ruling  classes  that  the  report  was  withheld  out  of 
fear  of  a  revolution.  Indeed,  the  queen  was  so  terrified 
by  the  danger  that  she  lost  her  mind.  Finally,  in 
1807  a  French  army  occupied  Lisbon  and  the  royal 
family  fled  to  Brazil.  Since  then  Portugal  which  was 
once  so  great  counts  for  very  lit'tle  in  the  political 
world. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  refer  to  France,  except  to  note 
that  it  was  Choiseul  who  purchased  Corsica  and  thus 
gave  his  country  which  he  had  helped  to  ruin  an  alien 
ruler:  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  who  put  an  end  to  the 
orgies  of  the  Revolution  by  deluging  Europe  with 
French  blood;  who  imprisoned  the  Pope;  demolished 
the  Bourbon  dynasties  wherever  he  could  find  them, 
and  bound  France  in  fetters  which,  in  spite  of  its 
multiplied  changes  of  government,  it  has  never  shaken 
off. 

When  Joseph  II  of  Austria  ended  his  lonely  and 
unhappy  existence  in  1790,  he  saw  in  France  the  be- 
ginning of  the  wreck  which  his  friend  Voltaire  had 
helped  to  effect;  he  did  not  live  to  see  the  execution 
of  his  own  sister,  Marie  Antoinette,  but  enough  had 
occurred  to  fill  him  with  terror  especially  as  the  exist- 
ence of  his  own  monarchy  was  threatened;  Belgium 
was  lost;  Hungary  was  in  wild  disorder,  and  other  parts 
of  the  empire  were  about  to  rebel.  Before  he  died 
he  wrote  his  own  epitaph.  It  was:  "  Here  lies 


616  The  Jesuits 

Joseph  II,  who  never  succeeded  in  any  of  his  under- 
takings." 

What  became  of  the  scattered  Jesuits?  The 
scholastics  and  lay-brothers,  of  course,  went  back  to 
the  world,  but,  in  France,  by  a  refinement  of  cruelty 
they  were  declared  by  the  courts  to  be  incapable  of 
inheriting  even  from  their  own  parents,  because  of 
the  vows  they  had  pronounced  on  entering  the  Society. 
That  the  vows  no  longer  existed  made  no  difference  to 
the  lawmakers.  As  for  the  priests  they  were 
secularized,  and  in  many  places  were  welcomed  by 
the  bishops  as  rectors  or  professors  in  colleges  and 
seminaries.  They  were  in  demand,  also,  as  directors 
of  religious  communities  and  not  a  few  became  bishops. 
Thus,  in  America,  the  first  two  members  of  the 
hierarchy,  Carroll  and  Neale,  were  old  Jesuits,  as  was 
Lawrence  Graessel  who  had  been  named  as  Carroll's 
successor  but  who  died  before  the  Bulls  arrived. 
Cretineau-Joly  has  a  list  of  twenty-one  bishops  in 
Europe  alone.  Others  were  called  to  episcopal  sees, 
but  in  hopes  of  the  restoration  of  the  Society  they  had 
declined  the  honor. 

Father  Walcher  was  appointed  imperial  director  of 
navigation  and  mathematics  by  Maria  Theresa;  Cabral, 
Lecci,  and  Riccati,  were  engaged  by  various  govern- 
ments in  engineering  works;  Zeplichal  was  employed 
by  Frederick  II  in  exploiting  mines.  The  Theresian 
College  of  Vienna  became  one  of  the  best  schools  in 
the  world  under  their  direction;  and  Breslau  felt  the 
effects  of  their  assistance,  as  did  other  colleges  such 
as  the  Oriental  in  Vienna,  the  University  of  Buda, 
and  the  schools  of  Mayence,  and  of  various  cities  in 
Italy. 

They  must  have  been  often  amused  at  some  of  the 
situations  in  which  they  found  themselves.  Thus, 
for  instance  in  1784  the  Parliament  of  Languedoc, 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    617 

which  had  been  one  of  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the 
Society,  met  to  arrange  for  the  solemn  obsequies  of 
the  Jesuit  Father  Sesane  "  the  friend  of  the  poor," 
and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  busy  taking 
juridical  information  for  his  canonization.  Again, 
although  not  permitted  to  exist  in  Switzerland  the 
Council  of  Soleuse  erected  a  statue  in  honor  of  the 
Jesuit  Father  Crollanza,  who  all  his  life  had  shunned 
honor  and  was  conspicuous  for  his  humility.  On  the 
pedestal  was  the  very  delightful  inscription: 
"  Pauperum  patrem,  asgrorum  matrem,  omnium 
fratrem,  virum  doctum  et  humilimum,  in  vita,  in  morte, 
in  feretro  suavitate  sibi  similem  amabat,  admirabatur, 
lugebat  Solodurum."  In  the  same  way,  Maria  Theresa 
in  an  official  document  dated  1776  declared  that 
"  moved  by  the  consideration  of  the  brilliant  virtues, 
the  science,  the  erudition  and  the  regular  and  exemplary 
life  of  Jean-Theophile  Delpini;  and  reflecting  more- 
over on  his  apostolic  labors  in  Hungary  and  the 
Principality  of  Transylvania  where  to  our  great 
consolation,  he  led  a  vast  throng  of  Anabaptists  back 
to  the  true  Faith,  we  have  chosen  and  we  hereby 
appoint  the  said  Theophile  Delpini  who  has  merited 
much  from  the  Church  and  the  State,  and  who  is 
therefore  very  acceptable  to  us  personally,  to  the 
post  of  Abbot  of  Our  Lady  of  Kolos-Monostros." 
Parhamer  obtained  a  similar  distinction  in  Austria 
and  Carinthia.  He  was  an  advanced  advocate  of  what 
is  now  called  social  service,  and  he  made  use  of  his 
position  as  confessor  and  friend  of  the  Emperor  Francis 
I  to  establish  useful  popular  institutions;  among  which 
was  an  orphanage  for  the  children  of  soldiers  who  had 
died  for  their  country.  It  *was  a  sort  of  child's 
H6tel  des  Invalides.  The  discipline  was  exclusively 
military,  with  drills,  camp  life,  etc.  Joseph  II 
wanted  to  make  him  a  bishop  but  Parhamer  asked 


618  The  Jesuits 

for  two  months  to  think  it  over  and  before  the  two 
months  had  expired  he  was  dead.  That  was  as  late 
as  1786.  Meantime,  Marie  Leczinska,  the  Queen  of 
France,  would  only  have  these  prescribed  Jesuits  hear 
her  confession,  and  two  Poles,  Radomiviski  and  Buganski 
were  chosen  for  that  office.  On  account  of  their  nation- 
ality they  could  not  be  exiled  from  France.  In  Austria, 
Father  Walcher  was  kept  busy  building  dykes  to  prevent 
inundations.  Father  Cabral,  a  Portuguese,  had  to 
harness  the  cataract  of  Velino,  which  had  so  long 
wrought  havoc  in  the  city  of  Terni,  and  then  he  did  the 
same  thing  for  his  own  country  by  confining  the 
Tagus  to  its  bed.  In  doing  so  he  did  not  remember 
that  his  country  had  kept  him  in  exile  for  eighteen 
years.  Ximenes  made  roads  and  bridges  in  Tuscany 
and  Rome.  Riccati  saved  Venice  from  inundations  by 
controlling  the  Po,  the  Adige  and  Brenta,  and  by 
order  of  Frederick  II  of  Prussia  Father  Zeplichal 
had  to  locate  the  metal  mines  of  Glatz,  and  so  on. 
All  this  was  over  and  above  their  ecclesiastical  work 
for  which  they  were  called  on  by  every  one,  even  by 
the  Pope  who  had  suppressed  them. 

The  famous  astronomer,  Maximilian  Hell,  was 
another  of  the  homeless  Jesuits  of  that  period;  and  as 
it  happened  that  from  the  beginning,  astronomy  had 
always  been  in  honor  in  the  Society,  there  was  a  great 
number  of  such  men  adrift  in  the  world  when  their 
own  observatories  were  taken  away  from  them.  The 
enthusiastic  historian  of  the  Society,  Cretineau-Joly 
has  an  extended  list  of  their  names  as  well  as  those 
who  were  remarkable  in  other  branches  of  science. 

The  "Theologia  Wiceburgensis,"  which  is  so  popular 
in  the  modern  Society,  was  composed  by  dispersed 
Jesuits,  and,  according  to  Cardinal  Pacca,  "  in  the 
difficulties  that  arose  between  the  Papal  nuncios  and 
the  ecclesiastical  Electors  of  Germany  it  was  the 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    619 

former  Jesuits  who  appeared  in  the  lists  as  the 
champions  of  the  Holy  See,  to  illumine  and  strengthen 
the  minds  of  the  faithful  by  their  solid  and  victorious 
writings."  Francois  Xavier  de  Feller  belonged  to  this 
period,  and  in  the  opinion  of  Gerlache,  the  historian 
of  the  Netherlands,  "  he  exerted  a  great  influence  on 
the  Belgian  Congress  of  1790."  It  was  he  who  led 
the  assault  on  Josephinism  and  Febronianism.  With 
him  in  this  fight  was  Francesco  Antonio  Zaccaria  who 
compelled  the  author  of  the ' '  Febronius ' '  to  acknowledge 
his  errors.  Guillaume  Bertier  revived  the  famous 
"  Journal  de  Trevoux,  "  and  Freron  made  a  reputation 
for  the  "Journal  des  Debats."  Girolamo  Tiraboschi 
wrote  his  "  History  of  Italian  Literature,"  Juan 
Andres,  his  "  Origin  of  All  Literature,"  Francisco 
Clavigero  continued  his  "  History  of  Mexico  "  and 
Antoine  de  Berault-Bercastel,  Frangois  De  Ligny, 
Jean  Grou,  Giulio  Cordara,  wrote  their  various  well- 
known  works.  Besides  writing  his  still  popular  "  Bible 
History"  Reeve  translated  into  Latin  verses  much  of  the 
poetry  of  Pope,  Dryden  and  Young.  The  list  is 
endless.  A  French-Canadian,  Xavier  du  Plessis,  was 
famous  in  the  pulpits  of  France  in  those  days,  as  was 
Nicholas  de  Beauregard,  who  in  1775  startled  all 
France  by  an  utterance  he  made  when  preaching  at 
Notre-Dame. 

'  These  philosophers,"  he  exclaimed,  "  are  striking 
at  the  king  and  at  religion.  The  axe  and  the  hammer 
are  in  their  hands.  They  are  only  waiting  for  the 
moment  to  overturn  the  altar  and  the  throne.  Yes 
Lord,  Thy  temples  will  be  plundered  and  destroyed, 
Thy  feasts  abolished,  Thy  name  proscribed.  But 
what  do  I  hear?  Great  God!  what  do  I  see.  Instead 
of  the  holy  canticles  which  resounded  beneath  these 
consecrated  vaults  till  now,  I  hear  lascivious  and 
blasphemous  songs.  And  thou,  the  infamous  divinity 


620  The  Jesuits 

of  paganism,  lascivious  Venus,  thou  darest  to  come 
to  take  the  place  of  the  living  God,  to  sit  upon  the 
throne  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  and  receive  the  guilty 
incense  of  thy  worshippers."  The  vision  was  realized 
eighteen  years  later. 

The  sermon  caused  a  tumult  in  the  church.  The 
preacher  was  denounced  as  seditious,  and  as  a  calum- 
niator of  light  and  reason.  Even  Condorcet  wrote  him 
down  as  a  ligueur  and  a  fanatic.  He  continued  preach- 
ing, nevertheless,  and  his  old  associates  followed  his 
example.  During  one  Lent,  out  of  twenty  of  the  great 
preachers,  sixteen  were  Jesuits. 

Three  of  these  former  Jesuits  especially  attracted 
attention  at  this  time  in  the  domain  of  letters  and 
science:  Zaccaria,  Tiraboschi,  and  Boscovich. 

Francesco  Antonio  Zaccaria,  whose  name  is  some- 
times written  Zaccheria,  was  a  Venetian  who  had 
entered  the  Austrian  novitiate  in  1731,  when  he  was 
a  boy  of  seventeen.  He  taught  literature  at  Goritz, 
but  was  subsequently  sent  to  Rome  where  he  became 
very  distinguished  both  for  his  eloquence  and  his 
marvellous  encyclopedic  knowledge.  In  1751  he  was 
appointed  to  succeed  Muratori  as  the  ducal  librarian 
at  Modena,  though  Cardinal  Quirini  had  asked  for 
him  and  the  celebrated  Count  Crustiani  subsequently 
tried  to  bring  him  to  Mantua.  His  fame  was  so  great 
that  the  most  illustrious  academies  of  Italy  claimed  his 
name  for  their  registers.  In  Rome  he  became  the 
literary  historiographer  of  the  Society,  and  had  been 
so  excellent  an  aid  for  Clement  XIII  in  the  fight 
against  Gallicanism  that  the  Pope  assigned  him  a 
pension.  That  was  just  before  the  Suppression  of 
the  Society;  when  that  event  occurred  he  was  deprived 
of  his  pension,  and  after  frequently  running  the  risk 
of  being  imprisoned  in  the  Castle  Sant'  Angelo,  he  was 
ordered  not  to  attempt  to  leave  Rome.  When  Pius  VI 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    621 

became  Pope,  Zaccaria's  life  became  a  little  happier. 
His  pension  was  restored  and  even  increased;  he  was 
made  Rector  of  the  College  of  Clerical  Nobles,  and 
regained  his  old  chair  of  ecclesiastical  history  in  the 
Sapienza.  He  died  in  1795  at  the  age  of  eighty-two. 
The  "  Biographic  Universelle "  says  that,  besides 
innumerable  manuscripts,  Zaccaria  left  one  hundred 
and  six  printed  books,  the  most  important  of  which  is 
the  "  Literary  History  of  Italy  "  in  14  octavo  volumes 
with  supplements  to  volumes  IV  and  V.  His  method  of 
leading  his  readers  through  the  literary  labyrinth 
deserves  no  less  praise  than  the  penetration  of  his 
views,  and  the  good  taste  of  his  criticism.  Besides 
this  literary  work,  he  wrote  on  moral  theology,  scrip- 
ture, canon  law,  history,  numismatics,  etc. 

Girolamo  Tiraboschi,  who  was  born  in  Bergamo  on 
December  28,  1731,  went  to  the  Jesuit  school  at  Monza, 
and  from  there  entered  the  Society.  His  first  character- 
istic work,  while  teaching  literature  in  Bergamo,  was 
to  re-edit  the  Latin-Italian  dictionary  of  Mandosio. 
He  made  so  many  corrections  that  it  was  substantially 
a  new  work.  When  occupied  as  librarian  in  Milan, 
he  discovered  a  set  of  valuable  manuscripts  about 
the  suppressed  Order  of  Humiliati.  The  publication  of 
these  MSS.  filled  up  a  gap  in  the  annals  of  the  Church, 
and  made  Tiraboschi's  reputation  in  the  world  of 
letters.  The  Duke  of  Modena  made  him  his  librarian, 
the  post  formerly  held  by  Zaccaria.  Thanks  to  the 
munificence  of  the  princes  of  Este,  the  library  was  a 
literary  treasure  house,  and  Tiraboschi  conceived  the 
idea  of  gathering  up  the  riches  around  him  and  writing 
a  good  history  of  Italian  literature;  a  task  that  seemed 
to  be  too  much  for  one  mind.  The  difficulty  was 
increased  by  the  jealousy  of  the  various  Italian  states, 
so  that  an  unbiased  judgment  about  the  merits  of 
this  army  of  writers  called  for  a  man  with  courage 


622  The  Jesuits 

enough  to  shut  his  ears  to  the  clamors  of  local  prejudice. 
It  supposed  also  a  profound  knowledge  of  ancient  and 
modern  literature,  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with  the 
arts  and  sciences,  and  skill  enough  not  to  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  mass  of  material  he  had  to  handle. 
It  took  him  eleven  years  to  complete  the  work. 

The  Spaniards  were  irritated  by  the  "  History " 
for  they  were  blamed  for  having  corrupted  the  literary 
taste  of  Italy,  and  three  Spanish  Jesuits  attacked 
him  fiercely  on  that  score.  Nevertheless,  the  Academy 
accepted  a  copy  of  the  work  in  the  most  flattering 
terms.  The  Italians  regarded  it  as  a  most  complete 
history  of  their  literature  and  a  monument  erected  to 
the  glory  of  their  country.  He  was  made  a  knight 
by  the  Duke  and  appointed  counsellor  of  the  princi- 
pality. While  he  was  engaged  in  this  work,  the  Society 
was  suppressed,  and  like  Boscovich  and  Zaccaria, 
he  did  not  live  to  see  its  resurrection.  He  died  in 
Modena  on  June  3,  1794. 

Ruggiero  Giuseppe  Boscovich  was  a  Dalmatian 
from  Ragusa,  where  he  was  born  on  May  18,  1711. 
He  was  a  boy  at  the  Jesuit  college  of  that  town  and 
entered  the  Society  at  the  early  age  of  fourteen. 
He  was  sent  to  the  Roman  College,  where  his  unusual 
literary  and  philosophical  as  well  as  mathematical 
abilities  immediately  attracted  attention.  He  was 
able  to  take  the  place  of  his  professor  in  mathematics 
while  he  was  yet  in  his  theological  studies,  and  sub- 
sequently occupied  the  chair  of  mathematics  with  great 
distinction  for  a  generation.  His  bent,  however,  was 
chiefly  for  astronomy,  and  every  year  he  issued  a 
treatise  on  one  or  another  subject  of  that  science. 
Among  them  may  be  mentioned:  the  "  Sun  spots  " 
(1736);  "The  Transit  of  Mercury"  (1737);  "The 
Aurora  Borealis  "  (1738);  "Application  of  the  Tele- 
scope in  Astronomical  Studies"  (1739);  "The  Figure 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    623 

of  the  Earth  "  (1739);  "  The  Motion  of  the  Heavenly 
Bodies  in  an  unresisting  Medium  "  (1740);  "  Various 
effects  of  Gravity"  (1741);  "The  Aberration  of  the 
Fixed  Stars  "  (1742);  and  numberless  others.  Foreign 
and  Italian  academies,  among  them  Bologna,  Paris 
and  London  admitted  him  to  membership.  It  was  he 
who  first  suggested  the  massive  pillars  of  the  college 
church  of  St.  Ignatius  as  the  foundation  of  the  Observ- 
atory in  Rome;  but  the  Suppression  of  the  Society 
prevented  him  from  carrying  out  the  plan.  When  the 
great  dome  of  St.  Peter's  began  to  crack,  he  allayed 
the  general  alarm  by  placing  iron  bands  around  it. 
His  advice  was  sought  for  the  draining  of  the  Pontine 
Marshes;  he  surveyed  the  Papal  States  by  order  of 
Benedict  XIV  and  induced  the  Pope  to  withdraw  the 
obsolete  decree  in  the  Index  against  the  Copernican 
system. 

When  King  John  V  of  Portugal  asked  for  ten  Jesuit 
Fathers  to  make  an  elaborate  survey  of  Brazil,  Bosco- 
vich  offered  himself  for  the  arduous  task,  hoping  thus 
to  make  a  survey  in  Ecuador,  so  as  to  obtain  data  for 
the  final  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  figure  of  the 
earth  which  was  then  exciting  much  attention  in 
England  and  France,  but  the  Pope  kept  him  for  the 
survey  of  Italy,  which  Boscovich  did,  and  in  1755  he 
published  a  large  quarto  volume  describing  the  work. 
In  1748,  he  had  already  revived  Leibnitz's  system  of 
dynamism  in  the  composition  of  bodies,  a  view  which 
his  fellow- Jesuits  generally  rejected.  When  this  vol- 
ume was  issued,  the  publisher  added  a  list  of  Bosco- 
vich's  previous  works.  They  amounted  to  sixty-six 
and  he  soon  added  three  more  quartos  on  "The 
Elements  of  Mathematics."  He  even  wrote  Latin 
poetry,  mostly  eulogies  of  the  Pope  and  distinguished 
men,  and  published  five  volumes  of  verse  on  "  The 
Defects  of  the  Sun  and  the  Moon." 


624  The  Jesuits 

Boscovich's  advice  was  sought  as  an  engineer  for 
damming  the  Lakes  which  were  threatening  the  city 
of  Lucca;  and  he  acquitted  himself  so  well,  that  he 
was  made  an  honorary  citizen  and  his  expenses  were 
subsequently  paid  for  his  scientific  exploration  in 
Italy,  France  and  England.  He  settled  a  dispute 
between  his  native  town  and  the  King  of  France.  He 
journeyed  with  the  Venetian  ambassador  to  Constanti- 
nople to  complete  his  archaeological  studies,  but  that 
journey  seriously  injured  his  health.  He  then  accepted 
the  appointment  of  professor  of  mathematics  at  the 
University  of  Pavia  and  helped  to  found  the  Observa- 
tory of  Brera  in  Milan  which  with  that  of  the  Col- 
legio  Romano  is  among  the  most  prominent  in  Italy. 
The  London  Academy  wanted  to  send  him  to  Cali- 
fornia in  1769  to  observe  the  transit  of  Venus,  but  the 
opposition  to  the  Jesuits,  which  was  four  years  later 
to  lead  to  their  suppression,  caused  the  invitation 
to  be  withdrawn.  Louis  XV  then  called  him  to  France 
where  he  was  made  director  of  optics  for  the  Navy 
with  a  salary  of  8,000  francs.  He  retained  this  posi- 
tion until  1783,  that  is  ten  years  after  the  Society  of 
Jesus  had  gone  out  of  existence.  He  then  went  to 
Italy  to  publish  five  more  books,  and  at  the  age  of 
eighty-six  retired  to  the  monastery  of  the  monks  of 
Vallombroso.  On  account  of  his  great  ability,  or 
rather  on  account  of  his  being  a  Jesuit,  he  was  bitterly 
assailed  by  Condorcet  and  d'Alembert  and  other 
infidels  of  France. 

Bolgeni,  who  died  in  1811,  was  made  penitentiary 
by  Pius  VI  in  recognition  of  his  services  against  Jan- 
senism and  Josephinism.  Unfortunately,  however,  he 
advocated  the  acceptance  of  some  scheme  of  Napoleon, 
for  which  Pope  Pius  VII  deposed  him  from  his  office 
and  called  Father  Muzzarelli  from  Parma  to  take  his 
place.  In  1809  when  Pius  VII  was  exiled,  Muzzarelli 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    625 

went  with  him  to  Paris  or  at  least  followed  soon  after. 
His  work  on  the  "  Right  Use  of  Reason  in  Religion  " 
ran  up  to  eleven  volumes,  besides  which  he  produced 
other  books  against  Rousseau,  and  several  pious 
treatises,  like  the  "  Month  of  May,"  which  has  been 
translated  into  many  languages. 

Possibly  a  certain  number  of  missionaries  remained 
with  their  neophytes  because  they  were  too  remote 
to  be  reached.  Others,  who  owed  no  allegiance  to 
the  king  who  ordered  the  expulsion,  paid  no  attention 
to  it,  as  the  Englishman  King,  for  instance,  who  was 
martyred  in  Siam  after  the  Suppression;  or  the  Irish- 
man O'Reilly,  who  buried  himself,  in  the  forests 
of  Guiana  with  his  savages;  Poirot  was  kept  at  the 
court  of  Pekin  as  the  emperor's  musician;  and  Benoit 
constructed  fountains  for  the  imperial  gardens,  invented 
a  famous  waterclock,  which  spouted  water  from  the 
mouths  of  animals,  two  hours  for  each  beast,  thus 
running  through  the  twenty-four  hours  of  the  day; 
he  made  astronomical  observations,  brought  out 
copper-plate  engravings  of  maps  and  so  on,  and  finally 
died  of  apoplexy  in  1774,  one  year  after  Clement 
XIV  had  suppressed  the  Society.  Hallerstein,  the 
imperial  astronomer,  was  also  there  waiting  for  news 
of  the  coming  disaster. 

B.  N.  in  "  The  Jesuits;  their  history  and  foundation  " 
(II,  274)  and  Cretineau-Joly  both  declare  that  there 
were  four  of  the  proscribed  Jesuits  in  the  Etats  generaux 
which  was  convened  in  Paris  at  the  opening  of  the 
Revolution:  Delfau,  de  Rozaven,  San-Estavan  and 
Allain.  Of  course,  the  Rozaven  in  this  instance 
was  not  the  John  Rozaven  so  famous  later  on.  In 
1789  John  was  only  eighteen  years  of  age.  In  the 
session  of  February  19,  1790,  the  famous  Abbe  Gregoire, 
who  afterwards  became  the  Constitutional  Bishop  of 
Loir-et-Cher,  startled  the  assembly  by  crying  out, 
40 


626  The  Jesuits 

"  Among  the  hundred  thousand  vexations  of  the  old 
government,  whose  hand  was  so  heavy  on  France,  we 
must  place  the  suppression  of  the  celebrated  Order 
of  the  Jesuits."  'The  Deputy  Lavie  had  also  asked 
for  justice  in  their  behalf.  The  Protestant  Barnave 
declared  that  "  the  first  act  of  our  new  liberty  should 
be  to  repair  the  injustices  of  despotism;  and  I,  therefore, 
propose  an  amendment  in  favor  of  the  Jesuits."  "They 
have,"  said  the  next  speaker,  the  Abb6  de  Montesquieu, 
"  a  right  to  your  generosity.  You  will  not  refuse 
justice  to  that  celebrated  Society  in  whose  colleges 
some  of  you  have  studied;  whose  wrongs  we  cannot 
understand,  but  whose  sufferings  were  to  be  expected." 

The  sentiments  of  the  speakers  were  enthusiastically 
applauded,  but  it  was  all  forgotten  as  the  terrible 
Revolution  proceeded  on  its  course.  Jesuits  like  other 
priests  were  carried  to  the  guillotine;  but,  as  no  records 
could  now  be  kept,  it  is  impossible  to  find  out  how 
many  were  put  to  death.  We  find  out,  however, 
from  "  Les  martyrs  "  of  Leclercq  that  in  Paris  alone 
there  were  eleven :  DuPerron,  Benoit,  Bonnand,  Cayx, 
Friteyre,  du  Rocher,  Lanfant,  Villecrohain,  Le  Gue, 
Rousseau,  and  Seconds.  Cretineau-Joly  adds  to  this 
list  the  two  Rochefoucaulds;  Dulau,  who  was  Arch- 
bishop of  Aries;  Delfaux;  Millou;  Gagniere;  Le  Livec; 
another  Du  Rocher;  Vourlat;  Du  Roure;  Rouchon; 
Thomas;  Andrieux  and  Verron;  making  in  all  twenty- 
five.  In  "  Les  crimes  de  la  Revolution  "  there  are 
two  volumes  of  the  names  of  the  condemned  in  all 
parts  of  France,  but  as  the  ecclesiastical  victims  are 
merely  described  as  "  priests  "  it  is  impossible  to  find 
out  how  many  Jesuits  there  were  among  them.  The 
twenty-five,  however,  make  a  good  showing  for  a  single 
city.  Probably  the  proportion  was  the  same  elsewhere. 

The  old  Jesuits  appear  again  for  a  moment  in  Spain, 
when  in  1800  Charles  IV  recalled  them.  A  pestilence 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    627 

was  raging  in  Andalusia  when  they  arrived,  and  they 
immediately  plunged  into  the  work  of  caring  for  the 
sick.  Twenty-seven  Jesuits  died  in  the  performance 
of  this  act  of  charity;  but  the  government  soon  forgot 
it  and  again  drove  into  exile  the  men  whom  they  had 
appealed  to  for  help.  In  Austria  they  remained  in 
the  colleges  as  secular  priests.  At  Fribourg,  Lucerne 
and  Soleure,  the  people  insisted  on  their  retaining  the 
colleges.  In  China,  they  clung  to  their  missions  until 
the  arrival  of  the  Lazarists  in  1783.  In  Portuguese 
India,  even  before  the  Suppression,  they  had  been 
forcibly  expelled,  and  the  same  thing  occurred  in 
South  America  wherever  Portugal  ruled.  The  Spanish 
missions  of  both  South  and  North  America  had  like- 
wise been  wrested  from  them.  In  Turkey  the  French 
ambassador,  Saint-Priest,  insisted  on  their  staying  at 
their  posts  in  Constantinople,  because  of  their  success 
in  dealing  with  the  Moslems  and  schismatics.  As  we 
have  seen  when  missionaries  were  needed  in  the 
deadly  forests  of  French  Guiana,  the  government  was 
shameless  enough  to  ask  the  Portuguese  Jesuits  to 
devote  themselves  to  the  work;  and  the  request  was 
acceded  to.  They  were  also  entreated  to  remain  in 
French  India. 

Speaking  of  Brazil,  Southey  says  (III) :  "  Centuries 
will  not  repair  the  evil  done  by  their  sudden  expulsion. 
They  had  been  the  protectors  of  a  persecuted  race; 
the  advocates  of  mercy,  the  founders  of  civilization; 
and  their  patience  under  their  unmerited  sufferings 
forms  not  the  least  honorable  part  of  their  character." 
What  Southey  says  of  Brazil  applies  to  Paraguay, 
Chile  and  other  missions. 

Montucla  in  his  "  Histoire  des  mathematiques " 
tells  us  that  Father  Hallerstein,  the  president  of  the 
tribunal  of  astronomy  in  China  hearing  of  the 
Suppression,  died  of  the  shock,  as  did  his  two  dis- 


628  The  Jesuits 

tinguished  companions.  The  story  related  by  the 
Protestant  historian  Christopher  de  Murr  in  his 
"  Journal  "  is  also  illustrative  of  the  general  attitude 
of  mind  in  this  trying  conjuncture.  Just  before  the 
Suppression,  he  informs  us,  a  French  Government  ship 
left  Marseilles  for  Pekin  with  four  Jesuits  on  board. 
One  was  a  painter,  another  a  physician  and  the  two 
others  were  mathematicians.  All  of  them  were  to  be 
in  the  personal  entourage  of  the  Emperor  of  China. 
They  were  Austrians  from  the  Tyrol,  but  France, 
which  had  expelled  the  French  Jesuits  a  few  years 
before,  was  sending  these  foreign  Jesuits  to  represent 
her,  and  to  promote  the  interests  of  science  in  the 
Chinese  court.  They  set  sail  in  the  month  of  July, 
1773,  and  not  a  word  was  said  to  them  about  the  general 
Suppression,  which  Choiseul  knew  perfectly  well  would 
soon  take  place.  The  Archbishop  of  Paris,  de  Beau- 
mont, had  warned  them  of  what  was  in  the  air,  but  they 
could  not  believe  it  possible  and  so  they  departed  for 
the  Far  East. 

After  a  weary  journey  of  four  months,  they  arrived 
at  Macao.  Meantime  the  Brief  had  been  published, 
and  the  Bishop  of  Macao,  a  creature  of  Pombal's  made 
haste  to  inform  them  of  the  fact.  Had  he  held  his 
peace  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty  about  the 
continuance  of  the  journey  to  Pekin,  and  their  sub- 
sequent standing  at  the  court,  for  the  Brief  was  not 
effective  until  it  was  promulgated.  But  once  they 
knew  it,  the  poor  men  were  in  a  dilemma.  Not  to 
heed  the  invitation  of  the  Chinese  emperor  meant 
death,  if  he  laid  hold  of  them;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  go  to  China  without  the  power  of  saying  Mass  or 
preaching,  or  hearing  confessions,  namely  as  suspended 
priests,  was  unthinkable.  For  three  days,  the  un- 
fortunate wanderers  studied  the  problem  with  aching 
hearts,  and  finally  determined  to  run  the  risk  of  capture 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression   629 

by  the  Chinese  with  its  subsequent  punishment  of 
death.  They  stowed  themselves  away  on  separate 
ships  and  thus  got  back  to  Europe.  Incidentally,  it 
serves  as  a  proof  that  the  Jesuits  did  not  go  out  to  China 
to  be  mandarins,  as  some  of  their  enemies  alleged. 
They  accepted  what  honors  came  to  them,  but  only 
to  help  them  in  their  apostolic  work. 

It  was  found  out  subsequently  that  these  poor 
men  would  have  had  better  luck  had  they  continued 
on  their  journey  to  China  instead  of  returning  to 
Europe.  The  promulgation  of  the  Brief  and  the 
observance  of  all  the  legal  technicalities  connected  with 
its  enforcement  was  next  to  impossible  in  China, 
and  hence  we  find  a  letter  of  Father  Bourgeois  from 
Pekin  to  his  friend  Duprez  in  France,  which  bears 
the  date  May  15,  1775,  announcing  that  "  the  Brief 
is  on  its  way."  It  had  been  issued  two  years  pre- 
viously. Of  course,  Bourgeois  is  in  tears  over  the 
prospective  calamity,  and  tells  his  friend:  "  I  have 
nothing  now  but  eternity  and  that  is  not  far  off. 
Happy  are  those  of  Ours  who  are  with  Ignatius  and 
Xavier  and  Aloysius  Gonzaga  and  the  numberless  throng 
of  saints  who  follow  the  Lamb  under  the  glorious 
banner  of  the  Name  of  Jesus." 

Cretineau-Joly  discovered  another  letter  from  an 
Italian  lay-brother  named  Panzi,  who  writes  eighteen 
months  later  than  Bourgeois.  It  is  dated  November 
n,  1776.  In  it  he  says  "the  missionaries  had  been 
notified  of  the  Bull  of  Suppression  (he  does  not  state 
how),  nevertheless  they  live  together  in  the  same 
house,  under  the  same  roof  and  eat  at  the  same  table." 
Apparently  there  had  been  a  flaw  in  the  promulgation 
of  the  "  Bull  "  or  Brief.  The  brother  goes  on  to 
say,  that  "  the  Fathers  preach,  confess,  baptise,  retain 
possession  of  their  property  just  as  before.  No  one 
has  been  interdicted  or  suspended  for  the  reason  that 


630  The  Jesuits 

in  a  country  like  this  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  do  otherwise.  It  is  all  done  with  the  permission 
of  the  Bishop  of  Nankin,  to  whom  we  are  subject. 
If  the  same  course  had  been  pursued  here  as  in  some 
parts  of  Europe,  it  would  have  put  an  end  not  only 
to  the  missions  but  to  all  religion,  besides  being  a 
great  scandal  to  the  Chinese  Christians  who  could  not 
be  provided  for  and  who  would  have  abandoned  the 
Faith. 

'  Thanks  be  to  God,  our  holy  Mission  is  going  on 
well  and  at  present  everything  is  very  tranquil.  The 
number  of  converts  increases  daily.  Father  Dollieres 
brought  over  an  entire  tribe  which  lives  on  the 
mountains  two  days'  journey  from  Pekin.  The 
Emperor,  so  far,  shows  no  signs  of  embracing  the 
Catholic  Faith,  but  he  protects  it  everywhere  through- 
out his  vast  dominions,  and  so  do  the  other  great 
men  of  the  Empire.  I  am  still  at  my  work  of  painting. 
I  am  glad  I  am  doing  it  for  God ;  and  I  am  determined 
to  live  in  this  holy  mission  until  God  wishes  to  take 
me  to  himself." 

About  this  time,  the  Fathers  addressed  a  joint 
letter  to  Cardinal  de  Bernis,  the  French  ambassador 
at  Rome,  who  had  been  so  conspicuous  in  wresting  the 
Brief  of  Suppression  from  Clement  XIV  and  had 
originated  the  calumny  about  the  poisoning  of  the 
Pope. 

"  Would  your  Eminence,"  says  the  document,  "  oast 
a  glance  at  the  inclosed  report  on  the  present  condition 
of  the  French  missions  of  China  and  the  Indies  which 
has  been  asked  for  by  the  Holy  Congregation  of  the 
Propagation  of  the  Faith.  To  these  missions  as  you 
know,  his  majesty  has  sent  great  amounts  of  money 
and  a  large  number  of  his  subjects,  knowing  as  he  did 
that  the  interests  of  France  are  bound  up  with  those 
of  religion,  and  the  advancement  of  the  latter  was 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression   631 

what  he  had  chiefly  in  view.  It  will  be  gratifying  to 
you  to  learn  that  the  Chinese  Emperor  takes  great 
pleasure  in  having  these  French  missionaries  employed 
in  his  palace;  he  frequently  takes  them  with  him  on 
his  journeys  through  the  empire,  and  makes  use  of 
them  to  draw  up  maps  of  the  country,  which  are  of 
invaluable  service  to  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
missionaries,  on  account  of  the  esteem  in  which  they 
are  held,  use  all  their  influence  to  prevent  the  per- 
secution of  Christians  and  have  succeeded  in  obtaining 
favors  for  Europeans  and  especially  for  the  Frenchmen 
who  arrive  at  Canton,  by  protecting  them  from  the 
annoyances  to  which  they  are  exposed.  Over  and  above 
this,  several  of  the  Fathers  are  in  correspondence  with 
the  Paris  Academy  of  Science,  and  also  with  the 
ministers  of  State,  and  are  sending  them  the  results  of 
their  astronomical  observations,  and  of  their  dis- 
coveries in  botany,  natural  history,  in  brief,  whatever 
can  contribute  to  the  advancement  of  science  and  art. 
"  The  king  and  his  ministers,  have  in  the  past  few 
years,  accorded  free  transportation  to  the  Fathers  who 
are  sent  out  here  to  the  French  missions  of  India, 
and  deservedly  so,  for  these  missionaries  have  fre- 
quently rendered  important  service  to  France,  and 
for  that  reason,  the  Supreme  Council  of  Pondicherry 
has  taken  up  their  defense  against  the  rulings  of  the 
Parliament  of  Paris,  which  sent  officers  out  here  to 
seize  the  little  property  we  possess.  The  Pondicherry 
authorities  would  concede  only  that  the  Fathers 
might  make  a  small  change  in  their  soutane  and  be 
called  the  "Messieurs  les  missionnaires  de  Malabar." 
It  is  in  accordance  with  this  arrangement  that  we 
continue  to  exercise  our  functions  under  the  juris- 
diction of  the  bishop.  We  are  the  only  ones  who 
understand  the  very  difficult  language  of  the  country 
and  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  reason  why  we  should 


632  The  Jesuits 

not  be  left  as  we  are.  Besides  these  two  missions, 
there  are  two  others  in  the  Levant,  one  in  Greece, 
the  other  in  Syria.  They  have  always  been  and  still 
are  under  the  protection  of  France.  M.  le  Chevalier 
de  Saint-Priest,  who  is  ambassador  to  Turkey,  said, 
on  his  arrival  at  Constantinople,  that  the  king  had 
explicitly  recommended  to  him  the  French  missions 
and  ordered  him  to  assure  the  Fathers  of  the  continu- 
ance of  his  protection." 

Of  the  missions  in  Hindostan  it  may  be  of  use 
to  quote  here  the  utterance  of  M.  Perrin  of  the  Mis- 
sions Etrangeres,  who  went  out  to  India  three  years 
after  the  destruction  of  the  Jesuit  Missions  in  those 
parts.  "  I  cannot  be  suspected  when  I  speak  in 
praise  of  those  Fathers.  I  was  never  associated  with 
them.  Indeed,  they  were  already  extinct  as  a  body 
when  Providence  placed  me  in  the  happy  necessity  of 
having  had  to  do  with  some  of  the  former  members. 
I  belonged  to  an  association  which  had  protracted  and 
sometimes  very  lively  debates  with  the  Jesuit  Fathers, 
who  might  have  regarded  us  as  their  enemies,  if 
Christians  are  capable  of  entertaining  that  feeling; 
but  I  feel  bound  to  say  that,  notwithstanding  these 
discussions,  we  always  held  each  other  in  the  highest 
esteem,  and  I  hereby  defy  the  most  audacious  calumni- 
ator to  prove  that  the  Society  of  Jesus  had  ever  to 
blush  for  the  conduct  of  any  of  its  Malabar  missionaries 
either  at  Pondicherry  or  in  the  interior.  All  were 
formed  and  fashioned  by  virtue's  hand  and  they 
breathed  virtue  back  in  their  conduct  and  their  ser- 
mons." (Voyage  dans  1'Indostan,  II,  261.) 

Among  the  French  Jesuits  in  China,  Father  Amiot 
was  conspicuous.  Langles,  the  French  Academian  who 
was  ambassador  in  China,  dedicated  to  him  a  trans- 
lation of  Holme's  "  Travels  in  China,"  in  which  the 
Jesuit  is  described  as  "  Apostolic  Missionary  at  Pekin, 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression   633 

Correspondent  of  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and 
Belles  Lettres;  an  indefatigable  savant,  profoundly 
versed  in  the  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  sciences, 
the  arts  and  the  language  of  China  and  an  ardent 
promoter  of  the  Tatar-Manchou  language  and  lit- 
terature."  With  Amiot  was  Father  Joseph  d'Espinha, 
who  was  president  of  the  imperial  tribunal  of  astronomy, 
and  simultaneously  administrator  of  the  Diocese  of 
Pekin.  Fathers  de  Rocha  and  Rodrigues  presided 
over  the  tribunal  of  mathematics,  and  Father  Schel- 
barth  replaced  Castiglione  as  the  chief  painter  of  the 
emperor;  there  were  other  Jesuits  also  who  evangelised 
the  various  provinces  of  the  country  under  the  direction 
of  the  Ordinary. 

This  condition  of  things  lasted  for  ten  years  and  it 
was  only  then  that  the  question  arose  of  handing  over 
the  work  to  the  Lazarists.  Thus  in  a  letter  of  Father 
Bourgeois,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken,  he  says: 
"  they  have  given  our  mission  to  the  Lazarist  Fathers." 
The  letter  is  dated  November  15,  1783,  namely  ten 
years  after  the  suppression  of  the  Society.  '  They 
were  to  have  come  last  year,"  continues  the  writer; 
"  Will  they  come  this  year?  They  are  fine  men  and 
they  can  feel  sure  that  I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  to 
help  them  and  put  them  in  good  shape."  It  was  not 
until  1785  that  a  Lazarist,  Father  Raux,  took  over 
the  Pekin  Mission,  and  in  1788,  three  years  after- 
wards, Bourgeois  was  able  to  say  to  Father  Beaure- 
gard  who  had  contrived  to  remain  in  Paris  in  spite  of 
the  Revolution:  "  Our  missionary  successors  are 
men  of  merit,  remarkable  for  virtue,  talent  and  refine- 
ment. We  live  together  like  brothers,  and  thus  the 
Lord  consoles  us  for  the  loss  of  our  good  mother,  the 
Society,  whom  we  can  never  forget.  Nothing  can 
tear  that  love  out  of  our  hearts,  and  hence  every 
moment  we  have  to  make  acts  of  resignation  in  the 


634  The  Jesuits 

calamity  that  has  fallen  upon  us.  Meanwhile  it  is 
hard  to  say  in  our  house  whether  the  Lazarists  live  as 
Jesuits  or  the  Jesuits  like  Lazarists." 

The  old  and  infirm  Jesuits  who  were  homeless  and 
could  find  no  ecclesiastical  employment  had  much  to 
suffer.  They  became  pitiable  objects  of  charity. 
Zalenski  in  "  Les  Jesuites  da  la  Russie  Blanche " 
(I»  7?)  gives  an  instance  of  it,  in  an  appeal  made  to 
the  King  of  Poland  by  one  hundred  and  five  of  these 
outcasts,  many  of  whom  had  been  distinguished  pro- 
fessors in  the  splendid  colleges  of  the  country.  They 
had  been  granted  a  miserable  pittance  out  of  their  own 
property  in  the  way  of  a  pension,  but  even  that  was 
often  not  forthcoming.  After  reminding  His  Majesty 
that  this  pension  had  been  guaranteed  them  by  the 
Church,  by  their  country,  and  by  the  Sovereign  Pon- 
tiff, and  that  the  allowance  was  from  their  own  property ; 
and  was  due  to  them  from  the  natural  law;  and  also  that 
the  amount  needed  was  every  day  decreasing,  because 
of  the  great  number  among  them  who  were  dying,  they 
asked  him  imploringly:  "  Will  Poland,  so  long  known 
for  its  humanity,  be  cruel  only  to  us;  will  you  permit  us 
the  Lord's  anointed,  the  old  teachers  of  the  youth  of 
Poland,  to  go  begging  our  bread  on  the  streets,  with 
our  garments  in  rags,  and  exposed  to  insults ;  will  you 
permit  that  our  tears  and  our  cries  which  are  forced 
from  us  by  the  grief  and  abandonment  to  which  we  are 
reduoed  should  add  to  the  affliction  of  our  country; 
will  you  permit  that  our  country  should  be  accused  of 
inhumanity  and  insulted  because  it  withholds  our 
pension?  It  is  sad  enough  for  us  to  have  lost  the 
Society,  the  dearest  and  nearest  thing  to  our  heart  in 
this  life,  without  adding  this  new  suffering.  Should 
you  not  have  pity  on  our  lot  and  grant  us  a  pension? 
Do  not  bring  us  down  to  the  grave  with  this  new 
sorrow."  Whether  their  prayers  were  answered  or  not 


The  Sequel  to  the  Suppression    635 

we  do  not  know.  However,  as  Cardinal  Pallavicini 
denounces  the  king  as  "  impious  and  inert,"  it  is 
very  likely  that  the  poor  old  men  were  left  to  starve. 
Quite  unexpectedly  the  Protestant  Frederick  the 
Great  of  Prussia  and  the  schismatical  Catherine  II  of 
Russia  insisted  on  having  what  Jesuits  they  could 
get  for  educational  work  in  their  respective  domains.- 
As  neither  sovereign  would  permit  the  Papal  Brief 
to  be  read  in  the  countries  which  they  governed,  a 
number  of  the  exiles  in  various  parts  of  Europe  flocked 
thither.  Efforts  were  made  to  have  the  Brief  promul- 
gated in  both  countries,  but  without  success;  for 
Catherine  as  well  as  Frederick  denied  any  right  of 
the  Pope  in  their  regard;  nor  would  either  of  them 
listen  to  any  request  of  the  Jesuits  to  have  it  pub- 
lished. They  were  told  to  hold  their  peace.  Of 
course,  they  were  condemned  by  their  enemies  for 
accepting  this  heterodox  protection;  but  it  has  been 
blamed  for  almost  everything,  so  they  went  on  with 
their  work,  thanking  God  for  the  unexpected  shelter, 
and  knowing  perfectly  well  that  Clement  XIV  was 
not  averse  to  the  preservation  of  some  of  the  victims. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE   RUSSIAN    CONTINGENT 

Frederick  the  Great  and  the  "  Philosophers  " —  Protection  of  the 
Jesuits  —  Death  of  Voltaire  —  Catherine  of  Russia  —  The  Four  Col- 
leges —  The  Empress  at  Polotsk  —  Joseph  II  at  Mohilew  —  Archetti 
—  Baron  Grimm  —  Czerniewicz  and  the  Novitiate  —  Assent  of  Pius 
VI  —  Potemkin  —  Siestrzencewicz  —  General  Congregation  —  Benis- 
lawski  —  "Approbo;  Approbo  " — -Accession  of  former  Jesuits.  Gruber 
and  the  Emperor  Paul  —  Alexander  I  —  Missions  in  Russia. 

EVEN  before  the  general  suppression  of  the  Society, 
Frederick  II  of  Prussia  had  given  a  shock  to  the 
politicians  of  Europe  and  to  his  friends  the  philosophes 
of  France,  by  welcoming  the  exiled  Jesuits  into  his 
dominions  and  employing  them  as  teachers.  Hence 
d'Alembert  wrote  to  remonstrate;  though  at  first 
glance  he  appears  to  approve  of  the  king's  action, 
his  insulting  tone  when  speaking  of  the  Pope  reveals 
the  animus  of  this  enemy  of  God.  It  ran  as  follows: 
"  They  say  that  the  Cordelier,  Ganganelli,  does  not 
promise  ripe  pears  to  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  that 
St.  Francis  will  very  likely  kill  St.  Ignatius.  It 
appears  to  me  that  the  Holy  Father,  Cordelier  though 
he  be,  would  be  very  foolish  to  disband  his  regiment 
of  guards  to  please  the  Catholic  princes.  Such  a 
treaty  would  be  very  like  that  of  the  sheep  and 
the  wolves;  the  first  article  of  which  was  that  the 
sheep  should  deliver  their  dogs  to  the  wolves.  But  in 
any  case,  Sire,  it  will  be  a  curious  condition  of  affairs, 
if  while  the  Most  Christian,  the  Most  Catholic,  the 
Most  Apostolic,  and  the  Most  Faithful  kings  are 
destroying  the  grenadiers  of  the  Holy  See,  your  Most 
Heretical  Majesty  should -be  the  only  one  to  protect 
them."  A  little  later  he  writes:  "  I  am  assured  that 

636 


The  Russian  Contingent          637 

the  Cordelier  Pope  needs  a  good  deal  of  plucking  at 
his  sleeves  to  get  him  to  abolish  the  Jesuits.  I  am  not 
surprised.  To  propose  to  the  Pope  to  destroy  this 
brave  troop  is  like  asking  Your  Majesty  to  disband 
your  body  guards." 

D'Alembert  was  playing  double.  He  was  as  anxious 
as  any  one  to  bring  about  the  Suppression,  and  on 
April  3,  1770,  Frederick  wrote  him  that,  "  The  Phil- 
osophy which  has  had  such  vogue  in  this  century  is 
bragged  about  more  brazenly  than  ever.  But  what 
progress  has  it  made?  'It  has  expelled  the  Jesuits,' 
you  tell  me.  Granted,  but  I  will  prove,  if  you  want 
me  to  do  so,  that  the  whole  business  started  in  vanity, 
spite,  underhand  dealing  and  selfishness." 

On  July  7,  1770,  Frederick  wrote  to  Voltaire  and 
said:  "The  good  Cordelier  of  the  Vatican  lets  me 
keep  my  dear  Jesuits  whom  they  persecute  everywhere. 
I  will  guard  the  precious  seed  so  that  some  day  I  may 
supply  it  to  those  who  may  want  to  cultivate  this  rare 
plant  in  their  respective  countries."  Frederick  had 
annexed  Silesia  which  was  entirely  Catholic,  while  the 
part  of  Poland  which  was  allotted  to  him  at  the  time 
of  the  division  had  remained  only  half  faithful.  To 
gratify  them  and  keep  them  at  peace,  he  thought  he 
could  do  no  better  than  to  ask  the  Jesuits  to  take  care 
of  the  education  of  the  youth  of  those  countries, 
"  let  the  philosophes  cry  out  against  it  as  they  may." 
Hence,  on  December  4,  1772,  he  wrote  to  d'Alembert: 
"  I  received  an  ambassador  from  the  General  of  the 
Ignatians,  asking  me  to  declare  myself  openly  as  the 
protector  of  the  Order;  but  I  answered  that  when  Louis 
XV  thought  proper  to  suppress  the  regiment  of  Fitz- 
james  (the  Jansenists),  I  did  not  think  I  could  inter- 
cede for  that  corps;  and  moreover,  the  Pope  is  well 
able  to  bring  about  such  a  reformation  without  having 
heretics  take  a  hand  in  it." 


638  The  Jesuits 

A  Jesuit  named  Pinto  had,  indeed,  presented  himself 
to  Frederick  to  ask  for  his  protection,  but  he  had  no 
warrant  to  do  so.  Someone  in  Rome  had  suggested 
it,  and  he  was  encouraged  in  his  enterprise  by  Maria 
Theresa.  When  apprised  of  it,  the  General  sent  a  very 
severe  reprimand  to  the  volunteer  ambassador,  and  that 
disposed  of  Father  Pinto.  No  more  was  heard  of  him. 

Frederick  showed  himself  a  very  vigorous  protector 
of  the  Society.  When  the  Brief  was  published  he 
issued  the  following  decree:  "We,  Frederick  by  the 
Grace  of  God,  King  of  Prussia,  to  all  and  every  of 
our  subjects,  greeting: 

"  As  you  have  already  been  advised  that  you  are 
not  permitted  to  circulate  any  Bulls  or  Briefs  of  the 
Pope,  without  our  approbation  of  the  same,  we  have 
no  doubt  that  you  will  conform  to  this  general  order, 
in  case  the  Brief  of  the  Pope  suppressing  the  Society 
of  Jesus  arrives  at  any  department  within  your  juris- 
diction. Nevertheless,  we  have  deemed  it  necessary 
to  recall  this  to  your  memory,  and  as,  under  the  date 
of  Berlin,  the  sixth  of  this  month,  we  have  resolved,  for 
reasons  prompting  us  thereto,  that  this  annihilation 
of  the  Society  which  has  recently  taken  place  shall 
not  be  published  in  our  states,  we  graciously  enjoin 
upon  you  to  take  all  necessary  measures  in  your 
district  to  suppress  the  aforesaid  Bull  of  the  Pope; 
for  which  end  you  will,  in  our  name,  as  soon  as  you 
receive  this  communication,  issue  an  explicit  order, 
under  penalty  of  rigorous  chastisement,  to  all  ecclesi- 
astics of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  domiciled  in  your 
territory  not  to  publish  the  aforesaid  Bull  annulling 
the  Society  of  Jesus.  You  are  commanded  to  see 
carefully  to  fhe  execution  of  this  order,  and  to  inform 
us  immediately  in  case  any  high  foreign  ecclesiastics 
endeavor  to  introduce  any  Bulls  of  this  land  into  our 
kingdom  surreptitiously." 


The  Russian  Contingent         639 

This  mandate  had  the  effect  of  protecting  the 
Jesuits  who  were  in  his  dominions;  for  as  canon  law 
made  the  promulgation  of  the  Brief  an  indispensable 
condition  of  the  suppression,  it  followed  that  the 
Jesuits  in  Prussia  could  conscientiously  continue  to 
live  there  as  Jesuits.  Indeed,  the  king  had  previously 
notified  the  Pope  that -such  would  be  his  course  of 
action,  and  an  autograph  dispatch  to  the  Prussian 
representative  at  Rome,  dated  Potsdam,  September 
J3.  T773>  reads  as  follows:  "  Abb6  Columbini:  You 
will  say  to  whomsoever  it  may  concern,  but  without 
any  ostentation  or  affectation,  and  indeed  you  will 
endeavor  to  find  an  opportunity  to  say  naturally, 
both  to  the  Pope  and  his  prime  minister,  that  with 
regard  to  the  affair  of  the  Jesuits,  my  resolution  is 
taken  to  keep  them  in  my  States  as  they  hitherto 
have  been.  I  guaranteed  in  the  treaty  of  Breslau 
the  statu  quo  of  the  Catholic  religion,  and  I  have 
found  no  better  priests  than  they  under  every  aspect. 
You  will  add  that  as  I  am  a  heretic,  the  Pope 
cannot  dispense  me  from  the  obligation  of  keeping 
my  word  nor  from  nullifying  my  obligation  as  an 
honest  man." 

The  last  phrase,  of  course,  is  very  insulting,  but 
there  was  no  help  for  it.  It  was  the  king's.  When 
d'Alembert  heard  of  the  letter,  he  revealed  his  true 
colors,  and  warned  Frederick  that  he  would  regret 
it,  reminding  him  that  in  the  Silesian  War,  the  Jesuits 
had  been  opposed  to  him;  that  is  to  say,  the  Silesian 
Jesuits  were  faithful  to  Silesia.  Frederick  replied,  on 
Jan.  7,  1774:  'You  need  not  be  alarmed  for  my 
safety.  I  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  Jesuits;  they 
can  teach  the  youth  of  the  country,  and  they  are 
better  able  to  do  that  than  any  one  else.  It  is  true 
that  they  were  on  the  other  side,  during  the  war, 
but,  as  a  philosopher,  you  ought  not  to  reproach  me 


640  The  Jesuits 

for  being  kind  and  humane  to  every  one  of  the  human 
species,  no  matter  what  religion  or  society  he  belongs 
to.  Try  to  be  more  of  a  philosopher  and  less  of  a 
metaphysician.  Good  acts  are  more  profitable  to  the 
public  than  the  most  subtle  systems  and  the  most 
extravagant  discoveries,  in  which,  generally  speaking, 
the  mind  wanders  wildly  without  ever  finding  the 
truth.  In  any  case,  I  am  not  the  only  one  who  has 
protected  the  Jesuits.  The  English  and  the  Empress 
of  Russia  have  done  as  much."  This  correspondence 
with  d'Alembert  continued  for  a  year  or  so;  and  in 
1777,  when  Voltaire  was  dying,  the  king  wrote  to 
advise  him  to  think  of  his  old  school  days  at  Louis- 
le-Grand.  "  Remember  Father  Tournemine,  who  was 
your  nurse  and  made  you  suck  the  sweet  milk  of  the 
Muses.  Reconcile  yourself  with  the  Order  which  in 
the  last  century  gave  to  France  its  greatest  men."  To 
all  appearances  Voltaire  did  not  take  the  advice  of 
his  royal  friend. 

The  politicans  of  Spain  were  particularly  irritated 
at  this  action  of  Frederick,  but  he  paid  no  attention 
to  their  anger.  It  is  even  said  that  the  Pope  ordered 
his  nuncio  at  Warsaw  to  suspend  all  the  Jesuits  in 
Prussia  from  their  ecclesiastical  and  pedagogical 
function  and  that  a  request  was  made  to  the  King  to 
have  it  done  pro  forma,  with  a  promise  to  lift  the 
ban  immediately  afterwards,  a  proposition  which  seems 
too  silly  to  have  ever  been  seriously  made.  But  when 
Clement  XIV  died,  Pius  VI,  after  a  few  perfunctory 
protests,  so  as  not  to  exasperate  the  other  powers, 
let  it  be  known  that  he  was  not  dissatisfied  with  the 
status  of  the  Jesuits  in  Prussia,  and  he  not  only  wrote 
in  that  sense  to  Frederick,  but  encouraged  him  to 
continue  his  protection  of  the  outcasts.  Whereupon 
Frederick  dispatched  the  following  letter  to  the 
superior  of  Breslau.  It  is  dated  September  27,  1775: 


The  Russian  Contingent         641 

"  Venerable,  dear  and  faithful  Father:  The  new 
Pontiff  having  declared  that  he  left  to  me  the  choice 
of  the  most  suitable  means  to  be  employed  for  the 
conservation  of  the  Jesuits  in  my  kingdom,  and  that 
he  would  put  no  obstacle  in  my  way  by  any  declaration 
of  irregularity,  I  have  in  consequence  enjoined  on  my 
bishops  to  leave  your  Institute  in  statu  quo,  and  not 
to  trouble  any  of  your  members  or  to  refuse  ordination 
to  any  of  your  candidates  to  the  priesthood.  You  will 
therefore  conform  to  this  arrangement  and  advise 
your  confreres  to  do  likewise." 

Until  the  death  of  Bishop  Bayer  of  Culm,  who  was 
the  staunch  friend  of  the  Fathers,  there  was  no  cloud 
on  the  horizon;  but  he  was  succeeded  by  Bishop 
Hohenzotten,  who  belonged  to  the  House  of  Branden- 
burg. He  had  been  extremely  friendly  before  his 
installation  as  bishop,  but  immediately  afterwards  he 
advised  the  king  to  secularize  the  Jesuits  and  to  forbid 
the  establishment  of  a  novitiate.  The  king,  however, 
would  not  yield  any  further  than  to  permit  of  their 
dressing  as  secular  priests,  and  until  his  death  in  1786 
they  continued  to  live  in  community  under  the  name 
of  the  "  Priests  of  the  Royal  Institute."  His  successor 
was  not  so  benignant,  for  he  seized  all  the  revenues  of 
the  houses  and  thus  put  an  end  to  their  existence  in 
Prussia,  and  they,  like  their  brethren  elsewhere,  took 
the  road  of  exile.  Some  joined  the  secular  clergy  and 
others  made  their  way  to  Russia. 

More  surprising  still  was  the  protection  accorded  to 
them  by  the  terrible  Empress  Catherine  II  of  Russia. 
Indeed,  it  was  she  who  made  it  possible  to  preserve 
unbroken  the  link  between  the  old  and  the  new  Society. 
On  the  other  hand,  not  a  few  Pharisees  have  reproached 
the  Society  for  having  accepted  the  protection  of  this 
imperial  tigress.  For  the  same  reason,  they  might 
have  found  fault  with  Daniel  in  the  lion's  den.  He 
41 


642  The  Jesuits 

could  not  get  out  of  it;  and,  the  animals  were  kinder 
than  the  humans  above  ground. 

Catherine  of  Russia  was  not  a  Russian  but  a  Prussian. 
Her  name  was  Sophia  Augusta  of  Anhalt-Zerbst. 
She  and  her  unfortunate  husband  had  been  adopted 
by  the  czarina,  Elizabeth,  as  her  successors  on  the 
imperial  throne  of  Russia,  on  condition  that  they 
would  change  their  name  and  religion.  There  was 
no  difficulty  about  either,  especially  the  latter.  Accord- 
ing to  Oliphant,  Kohl,  Dollinger  and  others  who  have 
described  the  state  of  the  empire  as  it  was  about 
forty  years  later,  sixteen  millions  or  about  one  fourth 
of  the  entire  population  of  Russia  did  not  profess  the 
Greek  faith.  The  educated  classes  neither  cared  nor 
affected  to  care  for  the  state  religion.  From  the  mer- 
cantile classes  and  most  of  their  employees  and  the 
landed  aristocracy  all  faith  had  departed.  The  peasants 
were  divided  into  about  fifty  sects,  and  hatred  and 
contempt  for  one  another  and  the  enmity  of  all  of 
them  for  the  Orthodox  Church  were  extreme.  No 
two  Russian  bishops  had  any  spiritual  dependence  or 
connection  with  any  other.  They  were  simply 
paid  officials  of  a  common  master  who  appointed, 
degraded  or  discarded  them  at  pleasure.  De  Maistre 
who  lived  in  Russia  about  that  time  says.  "  The  words : 
"  Oriental  Church  "  or  "  Greek  Church  "  have  no 
meaning  whatever."  "  I  recognize,"  said  Peter  the 
Great,  "  no  other  legitimate  Patriarch  than  the  Pope 
of  Rome.  Since  you  will  not  obey  him  you  shall  obey 
me  only.  Behold  your  Pope."  On  that  basis  the 
Russian  Church  was  built. 

Strictly  speaking  the  Jesuits  were  not  entering 
Russia  but  merely  staying  in  their  old  establishments 
which  were  still  Polish,  though  geographically  labelled 
Russia.  Nevertheless,  with  Russia  proper  they  had 
already  a  considerable  acquaintance.  Thus,  as  early 


The  Russian  Contingent          643 

as  1612,  Father  Szgoda  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
taken  by  the  Tatars  to  the  Crimea,  so  as  to  evangelize 
the  Cossacks.  Later,  Father  Schmidt  had  appeared 
at  the  court  of  Peter  the  Great  as  chaplain  of  the 
Austrian  embassy.  In  1685,  Father  Debois  brought 
a  letter  to  the  czar  from  the  Pope  Innocent  III,  and 
in  1687  Father  Vota,  encouraged  by  several  Russian 
theologians  of  note,  was  bold  enough  to  propose  to 
Peter  the  Great  a  union  with  Rome.  Peter's  sister 
Sophia  was  favorable  to  the  project  and  the  moment 
seemed  propitious,  but  a  brace  of  fanatical  monks 
backed  by  the  patriarch,  fiercely  denounced  the  scheme 
and  it  was  dropped.  A  school,  however,  was  established 
at  Moscow,  but  when  Sophia  died,  Peter  drove  out 
the  Fathers.  In  1691,  however,  he  returned  to  a  better 
state  of  mind  and  permitted  the  Catholics  of  Moscow 
to  build  a  church  and  to  invite  the  Jesuits  to  take  charge 
of  it.  But  in  1719  he  again  expelled  them,  for  he  had 
conceived  the  idea  of  a  Church  of  his  own;  not  only 
independent  of  Rome  but  of  Constantinople,  and 
absolutely  under  his  own  control  —  a  view  it  is  said 
that  was  suggested  to  him  by  the  French  Jansenists 
whom  he  met  in  Paris  on  a  visit  there  in  1717. 

That  ended  all  hopes  of  Catholicity  in  Russia,  but 
in  1772  when  Poland  was  dismembered,  a  large  number 
of  Catholics  were  added  to  the  population  of  Russia 
and  Catherine  II,  who  had  murdered  her  husband  in 
order  to  be  supreme  in  the  State,  addressed  herself  to 
the  task  of  constituting  these  Russianized  Poles  into 
an  independent  Catholic  Church.  She  found  an 
ambitious  Polish  bishop,  named  Siestrzencewicz  who 
entered  into  her  views,  and  on  May  23,  1774,  by  an 
imperial  ukase  she  established  the  Diocese  of  White 
Russia.  Zalenski,  S.  J.,  the  author  of  "  Les  Jesuites 
et  la  Russie  Blanche  "  is  strong  in  his  denunciation 
of  Siestrzencewicz,  as  are  Pierling  and  Markowitch, 


644  The  Jesuits 

but  Godlewski  is  more  benignant  and  tries  to  excuse 
the  bishop  as  a  man  who  did  indeed  resort  to  question- 
able methods,  but  was  striving  to  stave  off  an  open 
persecution  of  the  Catholics.  Zalenski  has  the  more 
likely  view. 

This  name  of  "  White  "  Russia  is  a  puzzle  to  most 
people,  as  are  the  opposite  descriptions  of  "  Black  " 
and  "  Red  "  Russia.  Indeed  Okolski,  who  wrote  in 
1646,  has  a  book  entitled  "  Russia  Florida,"  a  name 
not  in  accordance  with  the  popular  notions  about  that 
country.  There  is  also  a  "  Greater  "  and  a  "  Little  " 
and  a  "  West  "  Russia.  The  geographical  limits  of 
White  Russia  may  be  found  in  any  encyclopedia. 
It  is  the  region  in  which  are  Polotsk,  Vitebsk,  Orsha, 
Mohilew,  Motislave  and  Gomel,  and  is  bounded  by 
the  rivers  Duna,  Dneiper,  Peripet  and  Bug.  It  was 
Russia's  share  in  the  first  spoliation  of  Poland,  and  had 
a  population  of  1,600,000.  Moscow  is  not  far  to  the 
east  but  St.  Petersburg  (Petrograd)  is  at  a  great  distance 
to  the  north. 

In  1772  Catherine  made  known  her  intention  regard- 
ing the  Jesuits  whom  she  found  teaching  in  the  section 
of  Poland  which  had  passed  under  her  sceptre.  They 
were  even  to  retain  their  four  colleges  of  Polotsk, 
Vitebsk,  Orsha  and  Dunaberg  besides  their  two  resi- 
dences and  fourteen  missions.  She  needed  them  as 
teachers  and  as  they  were  the  first  to  declare  their 
acceptance  of  the  new  conditions,  and  had  thus  set  an 
example  to  their  countrymen,  she  revoked  the  ancient 
proscription  of  Peter  the  Great  against  the  Society  in 
Russia  proper,  and  also  apprised  the  other  provinces 
of  Europe  that  she  would  be  their  guardian  in  the 
future. 

When  the  Brief  of  Suppression  was  announced,  the 
Fathers  felt  perfectly  sure  that,  like  Frederick  II, 
she  would  not  permit  it  to  be  promulgated,  both 


The  Russian  Contingent         645 

because  the  Russian  Church  refused  allegiance  to 
Rome,  and  also  because  she  had  already  bound  her- 
self by  a  promise  to  protect  them.  Nevertheless, 
through  their  superior,  they  addressed  to  her  "  Sacred 
Imperial  Majesty  "  the  following  letter: 

"It  is  to  Your  Majesty  that  we  owe  the  privilege 
of  professing  publicly  the  Roman  Catholic  Religion 
in  your  glorious  states,  and  of  depending  in  spiritual 
matters  on  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  who  is  the  visible 
head  of  our  Church.  That  is  the  reason  why  we  Jesuits, 
all  of  whom  belong  to  the  Roman  Rite,  but  who  are 
most  faithful  subjects  of  Your  Majesty,  now  prostrate 
before  your  august  imperial  throne,  implore  Your 
Majesty  by  all  that  is  most  sacred  to  permit  us  to 
render  prompt  and  public  obedience  to  the  authority 
which  resides  in  the  person  of  the  Sovereign  Roman 
Pontiff  and  to  execute  the  edict  he  has  sent  us  abolish- 
ing our  Society.  By  condescending  to  have  a  public 
proclamation  made  of  this  Brief  of  Suppression, 
Your  Majesty  will  thus  exercise  your  royal  authority, 
and  we  by  promptly  obeying  will  show  ourselves 
obedient  both  to  Your  Majesty  and  to  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  who  has  ordered  this  proclamation.  Such 
are  the  sentiments  and  the  prayers  of  all  and  each  of 
the  Jesuits,  which  are  now  expressed  by  me  to  Your 
Majesty,  of  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  the 
most  profound  veneration  and  the  most  respectful 
submission,  the  most  humble,  the  most  devoted  and 
the  most  faithful  subject, 

"  Stanislas  Czerniewicz." 

"  Her  Sacred  Majesty  "  absolutely  refused  to  accede 
to  the  request.  On  the  contrary  she  insisted  that  the 
Brief  should  not  be  proclaimed  in  her  dominions.  She 
showed  them  the  greatest  consideration  and  insisted 
that  her  nobles  should  imitate  her  example,  so  that  it 


646  The  Jesuits 

became  the  fashion  for  the  dignitaries  of  the  empire 
to  visit  the  various  Jesuit  establishments;  on  their 
part,  the  Jesuits  never  failed  to  show  their  apprecia- 
tion of  such  an  honor  in  as  splendid  a  fashion  as  pos- 
sible. The  most  memorable  of  all  such  visits  was  one 
in  which  the  "  Semiramis  of  the  North  "  was  the 
central  figure.  Catherine  left  St.  Petersburg,  on  May 
20,  1780,  and  reached  Polotsk  ten  days  later.  In  her 
suite  were  Potemkin,  Tchernichef,  de  Cobentzel, 
the  Prince  Marshal  Borjantynski,  and  Prince  Dol- 
kowiouki.  On  her  arrival,  while  surrounded  by  all 
the  notables  who  had  hastened  to  meet  her,  the  Jesuits 
were  pointed  out  to  her  and  she  graciously  saluted  them. 
In  the  evening,  the  college  was  splendidly  illuminated 
in  her  honor,  and  on  the  following  morning  she  came 
to  the  church,  for  she  was  burning  with  a  desire  to 
witness  a  Catholic  ceremonial.  After  Mass  she  went 
through  the  house,  and  both  at  her  arrival  and  depart- 
ure the  rector  celebrated  her  glory  in  an  epic  poem. 

From  thence  she  set  out  for  Mohilew  where  Joseph  II 
of  Austria  awaited  her.  He  had  already  visited  the 
college  at  this  place,  and  was  received  with  proper 
honor  by  the  rector  and  provincial.  He  made  all 
sorts  of  inquiries  about  the  reason  why  the  suppressed 
Jesuits  were  permitted  to  exist  in  Russia,  and  the 
bishop  told  him  laconically:  '  The  people  need  them; 
the  empress  ordered  it  and  Rome  has  said  nothing." 
"  You  did  well,"  replied  the  emperor,  "  you  should  not, 
and  could  not  have  done  otherwise."  With  the 
emperor  on  this  occasion  appears  the  unexpected 
figure  of  one  of  the  suppressed  Jesuits:  Father 
Francis  Xavier  Kalatai.  He  was  his  majesty's 
travelling  companion,  and  has  left  a  letter  telling  us 
what  happened  on  this  occasion. 

"  At  Mohilew,"  he  writes,  "  at  the  farthest  extremity 
of  the  recently  dismembered  provinces  of  Poland,  the 


The  Russian  Contingent         647 

Jesuits  still  remain  on  their  former  footing.  They  are 
protected  by  the  empress,  because  of  their  ability  in 
training  the  youth  of  the  country  in  science  and 
piety.  I  asked  to  be  presented  to  the  superior  when 
we  visited  the  college  and  found  him  to  be  a  very 
venerable  old  man.  I  questioned  him  and  other 
members  of  the  community  on  what  they  based  their 
non-submission  to  the  Brief  of  Suppression,  and  they 
replied  in  the  same  formula  as  the  bishop:  "  Clemen- 
tissima  imperatrice  nostra  protegente,  populo  derelicto 
exigente,  Roma  sciente  et  non  contradicente ;"  (i.e.  on  the 
protection  of  our  most  clement  empress,  the  needs  of  the 
the  abandoned  people,  and  the  knowledge  and  tacit 
consent  of  Rome).  They  then  showed  me  a  letter 
from  the  Pope  expressing  his  affection  for  them,  and 
exhorting  them  to  remain  as  they  were  until  new 
arrangements  could  be  made.  He  insisted  upon  their 
receiving  novices  and  admitting  Jesuits  from  other 
provinces,  who  desired  to  resume  with  them  the 
sweet  yoke  of  Christ  from  which  they  had  been  so 
violently  torn.  '  The  provincial  added  that  all  the 
Jesuits  of  Russia  were  willing  to  relinquish  everything 
they  had,  at  the  first  authentic  sign  of  the  will  of  the 
Pope,  and  that  they  waited  only  a  canonical  announce- 
ment to  that  effect.  Thus,  I  found  that  the  true 
spirit  of  the  Society  had  kept  its  first  fervor  among  these 
scattered  remnants  of  it  in  Russia." 

The  empress  arrived,  after  making  fifty  leagues  a  day 
on  the  trip  from  Polotsk;  killing  ten  horses  on  the 
journey.  The  meeting  of  the  two  sovereigns  was 
unusually  splendid;  ten  thousand  soldiers  stood  on 
guard  in  the  city,  and  besides  state  receptions,  there 
were  theatrical  performances,  public  sports,  banquets 
and  the  rest.  The  Jesuits  of  other  establishments 
paid  their  respects,  and  were  presented  to  the  empress 
by  the  governor.  On  the  i2th  of  June,  "  Semiramis  " 


648  The  Jesuits 

left  for  St.  Petersburg.  Such  a  favor,  of  course, 
made  the  Jesuits  still  more  popular  and,  at  the  same 
time,  checked  the  papal  nuncio,  Archetti,  who  had  not 
yet  recovered  from  his  failure  to  have  the  suppression 
made  effective.  Nevertheless,  he  still  persisted  in  his 
efforts,  in  spite  of  the  threats  of  the  empress.  But 
she  never  yielded. 

Father  Brucker  writing  in  the  "  Etudes  "  (torn.  132, 
1912,  558-59)  gives  a  characteristic  letter  of  the 
empress  to  Baron  Grimm  who  was  a  friend  and  asso- 
ciate of  Rousseau,  Diderot,  d'Alembert,  Holbach  and 
the  rest.  At  that  time,  Grimm  was  the  envoy  of 
the  Duke  of  Saxe-Gotha,  at  the  court  of  France,  and 
later  on,  Catherine's  own  plenipotentiary  to  Lower 
Saxony. 

The  letter  is  dated  May  7,  1779  and  runs  as  follows- 
"  Neither  I  nor  my  coquins  en  litre  (my  honorable 
rogues)  les  Jesuites  de  la  R.  Bl.  (the  Jesuits  of  White 
Russia)  are  going  to  cause  the  Pope  any  worry.  They 
are  very  submissive  to  him  and  want  to  do  only- what 
he  wishes.  I  suppose  it  is  you  who  wrote  the  article 
in  the  '  Gazette  de  Cologne '  about  the  hot  house 
(the  Jesuit  novitiate).  You  say  that  I  am  amusing 
myself  by  being  kind  to  them.  Assuredly,  you  credit 
me  with  a  pretty  motive,  whereas  I  have  no  other  than 
that  of  keeping  my  word  and  seeking  the  public  good. 
As  for  your  grocers  (the  Bourbon  kings)  I  make  a 
present  of  them  to  you ;  but  I  know  one  thing,  namely, 
they  are  not  going  to  visit  me  and  sing  the  song: 
'  Bonhomme!  you  are  not  master  of  your  house  while 
we  are  in  it.' ' 

As  early  as  1776,  that  is  only  three  years  after  the 
Suppression,  the  Jesuits  of  White  Russia  already 
numbered  145  members,  and  had  twelve  establish- 
ments: colleges,  residences,  missions,  etc.  In  1777 
the  question  was  discussed  about  opening  a  novitiate 


The  Russian  Contingent         649 

and  the  Fathers  had  sufficient  evidence  that  Pius  VI 
would  be  glad  of  it  and  that  even  Clement  XIV  had 
not  been  averse.  Moreover,  the  letter  sent  to  Bishop 
Siestrzencewicz  had  been  found  on  examination  not 
to  be  the  "  formidable  decree,"  as  friends  in  Rome  had 
described  it,  for  it  left  to  him  the  right  of  creating  and 
renewing  only  "  what  he  might  find  necessary." 
Finally,  as  it  was  not  couched  in  the  usual  form  of 
Apostolic  documents,  the  superior,  Father  Czer- 
niewicz,  set  aside  his  doubts  and  wrote  both  to  the 
bishop  and  to  the  firm  friend  of  the  Society,  Governor 
General  Tchernichef,  that  he  had  determined  to  open 
that  establishment. 

Tchernichef's  support  must  have  been  very  strong, 
for  when  Father  Czerniewicz  arrived  at  Mohilew  to 
arrange  matters  with  the  bishop,  he  received  from  the 
prelate  a  decree  dated  June  29,  1779,  authorizing  him 
to  carry  out  his  purpose.  This  decree  began  with 
the  words:  "  Pope  Clement  XIV,  of  celebrated 
memory,  condescending  to  the  desire  of  the  Most 
August  Empress  of  the  Russias,  our  Most  Clement 
Sovereign,  had  permitted  the  non-promulgation  in 
her  dominions  of  the  Bull  'Dominus  ac  Redemptor;' 
and  Our  Holy  Father  Pope  Pius  VI,  now  happily 
reigning,  shows  the  same  deference  to  the  desires  of  Her 
Imperial  Majesty,  by  refraining  from  all  opposition  to 
the  retention  of  their  habit,  name  and  profession  by 
the  Regular  Clerks  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  in  the  estates 
of  her  Majesty,  notwithstanding  the  Bull  '  Dominus  ac 
Redemptor.'  Moreover  as  the  Most  August  Empress  to 
whom  both  we  and  the  numerous  Catholic  churches  in 
her  vast  domains  are  under  such  grave  obligations  has 
recommended  to  us  both  verbally  and  by  writing 
to  do  all  in  our  power  to  see  that  the  aforesaid  Regular 
Clerks  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  may  provide  for  the 
conservation  of  their  Institute,  we  hasten  to  fulfil 


6bO  The  Jesuits 

that  duty  which  is  so  agreeable  to  us  and  for  which 
we  should  reproach  ourselves  did  we  stint  our  efforts 
in  carrying  it  out.  Hitherto,  they  have  not  had  any 
novitiate  in  this  country,  and,  as  their  numbers  are 
gradually  diminishing,  it  is  evident  that  they  cannot 
exercise  their  useful  ministry  unless  a  novitiate  is 
accorded  them." 

In  virtue  of  this  permission,  a  novitiate  was  estab- 
lished at  Polotsk  on  February  2,  1780,  and  ten  novices 
entered  and  began  community  life  under  the  direction 
of  Father  Lubowicki,  On  that  occasion,  according  to 
de  Murr,  a  formidable  Latin  poem  of  169  hexameters 
was  composed  by  Father  Michael  Korycki  in  honor  of 
Bishop  Siestrzencewicz.  Thus  was  the  house  estab- 
lished; and  in  spite  of  the  importunities  of  the  Bourbon 
ambassadors  at  Rome,  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  Pius  VI, 
never  gave  utterance,  either  personally  or  through  his 
nuncio  in  Poland,  to  any  public  protest  against  it. 
All  the  denunciations  of  the  alleged  "  refractory 
Jesuits  "  were  either  letters  of  private  individuals  or 
secret  official  correspondence,  written  doubtless  in 
the  name  of  the  Pope,  but  indirectly,  that  is  through 
the  channel  of  the  secretaryship  of  State  and  the 
nunciature;  and  never  going  outside  the  narrow  dip- 
lomatic circle.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest  positive  proof 
that  the  Pope  regarded  the  Jesuits  of  White  Russia 
except  as  religious. 

"  On  the  contrary,"  says  Zalenski  (I,  330),  "  Pius 
VI  knew  very  well,  as  did  everyone  else  in  Rome,  that 
Clement  XIV  had  published  the  Brief  of  Suppression 
in  spite  of  himself,  and  only  after  four  years  of  hesitation 
and  conflict  with  the  diplomats.  Moreover,  Cardinals 
Antonelli  and  Calini,  eye-witnesses  of  what  had 
happened,  represented  to  Pius  VI  in  personal  memorials 
that  the  suppression  was  invalid.  Pius  himself  had 
belonged  to  that  section  of  cardinals  which  disapproved 


The  Russian  Contingent          651 

of  the  destruction,  and,  as  has  been  already  said, 
when  he  was  Pope,  he  set  free  the  prisoners  of  the 
Castle  Sant'  Angelo,  rehabilitated  their  memory,  and 
ordered  Father  Ricci  to  be  buried  with  the  honors  due 
to  the  general  of  an  Order.  In  brief,  Pius  VI,  as  both 
Frederick  II  and  Tchernichef  insisted,  was  really 
glad  that  the  Society  had  been  preserved,  and  his 
silence  was  an  approbation  of  it.  Indeed,  he  could 
not,  as  the  Father  of  Christendom,  exclude  the  Jesuits 
from  the  protection  of  the  general  law  of  the  Church 
and  regard  them  as  suppressed  and  freed  from  their 
vows,  before  the  Brief  of  Clement  XIV  had  been 
properly  made  known  to  them  by  the  ordinary  of  the 
diocese.  Of  course,  their  enemies  systematically 
rejected  this  axiom  although  accepted  both  by  common 
and  canon  law.  They  denounced  it  as  "a  vain  sub- 
terfuge," and  even  the  Apostolic  nuncio,  in  one  of  his 
dispatches  declared  it  to  be  such;  but  the  Holy  Father 
could  not,  in  conscience,  accept  that  view. 

In  February,  1782,  Tchernichef,  the  great  friend  of 
the  Society,  fell  from  power,  but  his  successor  Potemkin 
showed  himself  even  a  more  devoted  defender. 
Fortunately,  Father  Benislawski,  a  former  Jesuit,  but 
now  a  canon,  was  very  intimate  with  him  and  induced 
him  to  give  his  aid  to  the  Society.  As  Bishop  Siestr- 
zencewicz  had  meantime  become  Archbishop  of 
Mohilew,  the  fear  was  again  revived  that  he  would 
claim  to  be  the  religious  superior  of  the  Jesuits.  Indeed, 
by  sundry  appointments  to  parishes,  he  began  to 
reveal  that  such  was  his  intention,  and  Archetti,  the  nun- 
cio at  Warsaw,  urged  him  to  persist  in  his  attacks.  To 
head  off  the  danger,  the  Fathers  had  determined  to 
proceed  to  the  election  of  a  Vicar  General,  and  they 
obtained  permission  from  the  empress  to  that  effect. 
She  issued  a  ukase,  on  June  23,  1782,^  which  she 
said  that  the  Jesuits  were  to  be  subject  to  the  arch- 


652  The  Jesuits 

bishop,  in  things  that  pertained  to  his  rights  and 
duties,  but  that  he  should  be  very  careful  not  to  inter- 
fere with  any  of  the  rules  of  the  Order  which  were  to 
remain  intact  "in  as  far  as  they  agree  with  our  civil 
constitutions."  Siestrzencewicz  was  quite  upset  by 
this  order,  and  not  knowing  that  it  had  been  obtained 
through  the  intervention  of  Potemkin,  he  asked  the 
Prince  Wiaziemski,  who  was  then  president  of  the 
Senate,  to  obtain  a  decree  from  that  body  subjecting 
the  Jesuits  to  his  jurisdiction.  The  Senate  so  ruled 
by  a  rescript  dated  September  12,  1781,  but  it  was  a 
very  ill-advised  proceeding  on  their  part,  for  it  set 
them  in  opposition  both  to  the  empress  and  the  power- 
ful Potemkin,  besides  making  a  rebel  of  the  archbishop 
and  a  meddler  of  the  nuncio. 

While  a  spirited  correspondence  was  going  on  between 
those  two  distinguished  ecclesiastics  about  the  matter, 
the  Fathers  met  at  Polotsk,  on  October  10,  1782, 
which  happened  to  be  the  feast  of  St.  Francis  Borgia, 
to  hold  the  twentieth  congregation  of  the  Society. 
Everything  was  done  according  to  the  rule  which 
governs  such  assemblies,  and  Father  Stanislaus  Cerznie- 
wicz,  the  vice-provincial,  was  chosen  Vicar  General 
of  the  Society.  In  the  following  session,  it  was  decreed 
that  for  those  who  re-entered  the  Society,  the  years 
spent  involuntarily  and  by  compulsion,  in  the  world, 
would  count  as  so  many  years  in  religion.  With  this 
the  congregation  ended,  because  orders  had  come  to 
Polotsk,  for  the  Vicar  General  to  report  immediately 
to  the  Empress  at  St.  Petersburg.  Accordingly,  after 
naming  Father  Francis  Kareu,  vice-provincial,  he  set 
out  for  the  capital  and  was  welcomed  by  Catherine 
with  the  words:  "  I  defended  you  thus  far,  and  will 
do  so  till  the  end." 

The  question  now  arose  how  would  the  archbishop 
receive  the  delegates  of  the  congregation  which  had 


The  Russian  Contingent          653 

ignored  his  claim  to  control  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
Society.  The  all-powerful  Potemkin  had  attended  to 
that.  He  had  called  the  prelate  to  task  for  daring  to 
oppose  the  explicit  command  of  the  empress,  and 
warned  him  of  the  danger  of  such  a  course  of  action. 
As  Siestrzencewicz  was  primarily  a  politician,  he  had 
no  difficulty  in  modifying  his  views.  Moreover, 
Canon  Benislawski,  who  had  studied  him  at  close 
range  and  knew  his  peculiarities,  had  taken  care  to 
prepare  him  for  the  visit  of  the  delegates.  When  they 
arrived,  he  received  them  with  the  greatest  courtesy 
and  sent  a  letter  of  congratulation  to  the  newly- 
elected  vicar.  The  future  of  the  Society  was  thus 
assured.  A  successor  to  Father  Ricci  had  been  elected; 
a  general  congregation  had  convened  and  its  proceeding 
had  been  conducted  in  strict  conformity  with  the 
Constitution.  Besides,  a  novitiate  had  been  established, 
members  of  the  dispersed  provinces  had  been  officially 
recognized  as  belonging  to  the  Society ;  and  all  this  had 
been  done  with  the  tacit  consent  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff. 
Father  Czerniewicz  remained  in  St.  Petersburg 
more  than  three  months,  during  which  time  he  was 
frequently  summoned  to  discuss  with  the  empress 
and  Potemkin  matters  pertaining  to  education,  but 
chiefly  to  make  arrangements  for  negotiations  in 
Rome,  in  order  to  obtain  the  Pope's  express  approval 
of  the  election.  The  matter  called  for  considerable 
diplomatic  skill,  for  in  the  Acts  of  the  congregation, 
some  very  bold  expressions  had  been  employed  which 
might  cause  the  failure  of  the  whole  venture.  Thus, 
it  had  declared  that  "the  Brief  of  Clement  XIV 
destroyed  the  Society  outside  of  Russia;"  and  again, 
that  "  the  Vicar  was  elected  by  the  authority  of  the 
Holy  See."  The  second  especially  was  a  dangerous 
assertion,  since  the  papal  nuncio,  Archetti,  regarded 
the  election  as  illegal,  and  even  a  few  of  the  Jesuits 


654  The  Jesuits 

themselves  were  doubtful  as  to  the  correctness  of  the 
claim.  There  was  fear,  also,  about  the  personal 
disposition  of  the  Pope  on  that  point. 

To  dispose  of  all  these  difficulties  Catherine  sent 
Benislawski  as  her  ambassador  to  Rome,  with  very 
positive  instructions  not  to  modify  them  in  any  way 
whatever.  He  was  not  to  stop  at  Warsaw,  but  might 
call  on  the  nuncio,  Garampi,  at  Vienna,  and  also  on 
Gallitzin,  the  Russian  ambassador.  He  was  to  go  by 
the  shortest  route  to  Rome,  to  visit  no  cardinals  there, 
but  to  present  himself  immediately  to  the  Pope.  In 
his  audience,  he  was  to  make  three  requests.  They 
were:  first,  the  preconization  of  Siestrzencewicz  as 
archbishop;  second,  the  appointment  of  Benislawski 
himself  as  coadjutor;  and  third,  the  approbation  of 
the  Jesuits  in  White  Russia,  and  especially  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  Acts  of  the  congregation.  The  refusal 
of  anyone  of  them  was  to  entail  a  rupture  of  negotia- 
tions with  Russia. 

On  February  21,  1783,  Benislawski  arrived  in  Rome, 
and  saw  the  Pope  on  the  same  day.  He  was  received 
most  graciously;  his  own  nomination  as  bishop  was 
confirmed;  but,  said  the  Pope:  "  Siestrzencewicz  had 
no  right  to  open  the  novitiate."  '  That  was  done," 
replied  Benislawski,  "  by  order  of  the  empress." 
"  Since  that  is  the  case,"  said  the  Pope,  "  I  shall 
forget  the  injury  done  to  me  by  the  bishop."  He  then 
asked  about  the  Jesuits  and  their  General,  and  whether 
the  election  had  been  formally  ordered  by  the  empress." 
When  assured  upon  the  latter  point,  he  answered, 
"  I  do  not  object."  After  an  interview  of  two  hours 
Benislawski  withdrew. 

At  the  second  audience  the  attitude  of  the  Pope  was 
cold  and  indifferent,  for  the  Bourbon  ambassadors 
had  influenced  him  meantime.  Noticing  the  change, 
Benislawski  fell  upon  his  knees  and  asked  the  Pope's 


The  Russian  Contingent          655 

benediction.  "  What  does  this  mean?"  he  was  asked. 
"  My  orders  are  to  withdraw  immediately,  if  my 
requests  are  not  granted."  That  startled  the  Pope, 
and  he  immediately  changed  his  tone;  he  spoke  kindly 
to  Benislawski  and  told  him  to  put  his  requests  in 
writing.  All  night  long  the  faithful  ambassador 
labored  at  his  desk  formulating  each  request  and 
answering  every  argument  that  might  be  alleged 
against  it.  Zalenski  gives  the  entire  document  (I, 
386),  which  substantially  amounted  to  this:  "The 
failure  of  the  bishop  to  abolish  the  Society  in  Russia; 
the  establishment  of  the  novitiate,  and  the  election 
of  the  General  were  all  due  to  the  explicit  and  positive 
orders  of  Catherine.  As  she  had  threatened  to  persecute 
the  Catholics  of  Russia  and  to  compel  the  Poles  to 
enter  the  Orthodox  Church,  it  was  clear  that  there 
was  no  choice  but  to  submit  to  her  demands. 

"  With  regard  to  the  objection  that  the  Bourbon 
Princes  would  be  angry  at  Catherine's  support  of  the 
Jesuits,  Benislawski  made  answer,  that,  '  as  the 
empress  had  offered  no  objections  to  the  suppression 
of  the  Order  in  the  dominions  of  those  rulers,  she 
failed  to  see  why  they  had  any  right  to  question  her 
action  in  preserving  it.  She  owed  those  kings  no 
allegiance.'  Secondly,  the  approval  of  the  Society 
would  not  be  a  reflection  on  the  present  Pope,  who 
had  as  much  right  to  reverse  the  judgment  of  Clement 
XIV,  as  Clement  XIV  had  to  reverse  the  judgment  of 
thirty  of  his  predecessors.  If  none  of  the  kings  and 
diplomats  had  blamed  Clement  for  acting  as  he  did, 
why  should  they  blame  Pius  VI  for  using  his  own  right 
in  the  premises?  Moreover,  the  Brief  was  never 
published  in  Russia,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest 
prospect  that  it  ever  would  be.  Finally,  the  empress 
had  made  a  solemn  promise  not  to  harm  her  Catholic 
subjects;  but  she  was  convinced  that  she  could  not 


656  The  Jesuits 

inflict  a  greater  injury  on  them  than  to  deprive  their 
churches  of  priests  and  their  schools  of  teachers  who 
in  her  opinion  were  invaluable."  As  to  the  charge 
that  the  whole  course  of  the  empress  was  due  to  the 
suggestion  of  the  Jesuits,  Benislawski  replied  that 
"  everyone  knew  they  had  petitioned  her  to  have  the 
Brief  promulgated,  and  that  she  had  told  them  they 
were  asking  what  was  not  agreeable  to  her." 

The  next  day  the  Pope  read  the  statement,  smiled 
and  said,  "  You  want  to  arrange  this  matter  by  a 
debate  with  me.  But  there  can  be  no  answer  to  your 
contention.  Your  arguments  are  irrefutable."  Very 
opportunely,  a  letter  arrived  from  the  empress  who 
expressed  her  willingness  to  receive  a  papal  legate  to 
settle  the  case  of  the  Uniate  Archbishop  of  Polotsk, 
and  asking  to  have  Benislawski  consecrated  in  St. 
Petersburg.  The  letter  was  read  to  the  Pope,  in  the 
presence  of  a  number  of  Cardinals,  to  whom  Benislawski 
was  presented.  The  Holy  Father  then  gave  his  assent 
to  the  preconization  of  the  archbishop,  and  the  conse- 
cration of  Benislawski.  "As  to  the  third,"  he  said, 
raising  his  voice:  "  Approbo  Societatem  Jesu  in  Alba 
Russia  degentem;  approbo,  approbo"  (that  is  I 
approve  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  now  in  Russia;  I 
approve,  I  approve).  As  the  verbal  utterances  of 
Popes  in  public  matters  of  the  Church,  have  the  same 
force  as  when  they  are  in  writing,  and  are  designated 
by  canonists  and  theologians  as  viv&  vocis  oracula, 
Benislawski  contented  himself  with  this  approval. 
Besides,  fearing  the  machinations  of  the  Bourbon 
politicians,  he  could  not  ask  for  more.  He  had  won 
his  case,  and  had  received  the  Pope's  assurance  that 
the  Society  in  Russia  was  not  and  never  had  been 
suppressed.  No  more  was  needed. 

Against  the  immense  majority  of  historians  of  every 
shade  of  opinion,  Theiner  in  his  "  Pontificate  of  Clement 


The  Russian  Contingent         657 

XIV  "  denounces  this  account  of  the  embassy  as  "  a 
fabrication  of  the  Jesuit  Benislawski,"  though  Benis- 
lawski  was  not  then  a  Jesuit,  nor  did  he  ever  re-enter 
the  Society.  Besides,  although  Theiner  characterizes 
the  distinguished  canonist  whom  the  Pope  had  just 
made  a  bishop  as  "  a  liar  "  and  "  an  intriguer,"  he 
admits  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  "  a  virtuous 
man  "  and  "  a  pious  priest."  If  the  account  of  the 
audience  had  been  untrue,  the  Pope  would  certainly 
haye  been  compelled  to  denounce  it ;  for  it  was  published 
immediately  in  the  Florence  Gazette;  and  the  falsifier 
would  assuredly  never  have  received  his  mitre.  Never- 
theless, to  settle  the  matter  definitely  and  to  allay  all 
doubts  and  suspicions,  Benislawski,  after  he  was 
installed  as  Bishop  of  Gadara,  was  invited  to  the 
second  congregation  of  the  Jesuits.  It  met  at  Polotsk, 
on  July  25,  1785,  and  he  there  made  the  following 
declaration  under  oath: 

"  Having  been  sent  to  Rome  by  the  Most  Illustrious 
Empress  of  all  the  Russias  to  interview  the  Pope 
with  a  view  of  settling  the  difficulty  about  the  Arch- 
bishopric of  Mohilew  and  of  the  Co-adjutorship  of 
that  see,  as  well  as  to  obtain  from  the  Pope  the  approval 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  White  Russia,  I  represented 
to  His  Holiness  the  state  of  the  Jesuits  living  there  in 
conformity  with  the  laws  of  their  Institute,  and  I 
acquainted  him  with  the  fact  that  they  had  elected  a 
General  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  the  Most 
Illustrious  Empress.  After  having  heard  me,  His 
Holiness  kindly  approved  of  the  manner  of  life  which 
the  Jesuits  were  leading  in  White  Russia,  and  ratified  the 
election  of  the  General,  repeating  three  times,  'approbo, 
approbo,  approbo.'  I  affirm  under  a  most  solemn 
oath,  the  truth  of  this  verbal  approbation;  in 
confirmation  of  which  I  hereunto  affix  my  seal  and 
signature." 
42 


658  The  Jesuits 

Theiner  adduces  three  Briefs  of  Pius  VI  to  offset 
this  affidavit  of  Benislawski,  but  two  of  them  antedate 
the  episode  at  Rome;  the  third  was  issued  a  month 
later,  and  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  question 
at  issue.  Besides  this,  a  few  years  subsequent  to 
this  approval,  when  Father  Joseph  Pignatelli,  who 
may  one  day  be  among  the  canonized  saints  of  the 
Church,  asked  permission  of  the  Pope  to  go  to  White 
Russia  "  if  the  Society  existed  there,"  His  Holiness 
answered:  "  Yes,  it  exists  there;  and  if  it  were  possible 
I  would  have  it  extended  everywhere  throughout  the 
world.  Go  to  Russia.  I  authorize  you  to  wear  the 
habit  of  the  Jesuits.  I  regard  the  Jesuits  there,  as 
true  Jesuits  and  the  Society  existing  in  Russia  as 
lawfully  existing."  (Bonfier,  Vie  de  Pignatelli,  196.) 

As  their  status  was  now  settled,  the  Fathers  addressed 
themselves  to  the  educational  reform  which  the  empress 
wanted  to  introduce  into  the  schools  of  Russia.  It 
consisted  mainly  in  giving  prominence  to  the  physical 
sciences.  They  had  no  difficulty  in  complying  with 
her  wishes,  .and  Father  Gruber,  who  was  an  eminent 
physicist,  immediately  established  a  training-school 
for  the  preparation  of  future  professors,  and  in  March 
1785,  a  number  of  Jesuit  scientists  were  summoned  by 
Potemkin  to  St.  Petersburg. 

On  June  20,  of  that  year,  the  Vicar  General  Czernie- 
wicz  died.  He  was  born  in  1728,  and  had  entered  the 
Society  at  sixteen;  af  er  teaching  at  Warsaw,  he  was 
called  to  Rome  as  secretary  to  Father  Ricci ;  later  he 
was  substitute  assistant  of  Poland.  He  was  then  sent 
to  be  rector  of  Polotsk,  and  was  at  that  post  when 
Clement  XIV  issued  the  decree  of  Suppression.  At 
the  congregation  which  was  called  on  October  i, 
Father  Lenkiewicz  was  elected  to  succeed  him. 

By  this  time,  many  of  the  old  Jesuits  were  sending 
in  their  requests  for  admission.  Among  them  were 


The  Russian  Contingent         659 

such  distinguished  personages  as  the  astronomer  Hell; 
two  of  Father  Ricci's  assistants,  Romberg  and  Korycki 
and  others.  All  could  not  be  received  in  Russia  itself, 
but  wherever  they  were,  in  America,  Europe,  China, 
the  East  and  West  Indies,  etc.,  they  were  all  gladly 
welcomed  back  and  their  names  were  inscribed  in  the 
catalogue.  It  is  of  especial  interest  for  Americans  to 
find  those  of  Adam  Britt  of  Maryland  and  of  several 
who  were  sent  from  White  Russia  to  the  United  States 
when  Carroll  was  empowered  to  re-establish  the  Society 
in  1805.  They  are  Anthony  Kohlmann,  Malevy,  Brown, 
Epinette  and  others.  Those  who,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  were  unable  to  go  to  Russia  in  person,  were 
informed  that  they  were  duly  recognized  as  Jesuits 
and  were  given  permission  to  renew  their  vows.  This 
arrangement  was  made  especially  for  the  ex-members 
who  had  been  appointed  to  bishoprics,  or  were  employed 
in  some  important  function,  such  as  royal  confessors, 
court  preachers,  scientists,  etc.,  or  again,  who  were 
prevented  by  age  and  infirmity  from  making  the  long 
and  difficult  journey. 

In  the  "  Catalogus  mortuorum,"  or  list  of  deceased 
members,  which  covers  the  period  between  1773  and 
1814,  Zalenski  counts  268  who  are  extra  provinciam; 
all  nations  under  the  sun  are  represented.  From 
everywhere  gifts  were  sent  by  former  Jesuits.  Thus, 
Father  Raczynski  who  had  become  Primate  of  Poland 
gathered  together  at  various  auctions  as  many  as 
8000  Jesuit  books  and  sent  them  to  the  College  of 
Polotsk.  Others  followed  his  example,  and  in  1815 
the  college  library  had  35,000  volumes  on  its  shelves. 
Other  contributions  came  in  the  form  of  money.  As 
early  as  1787,  Polotsk  had  a  printing-press,  and 
produced  its  own  text-books,  besides  publishing  a 
number  of  works  which  were  out  of  print.  Fr.  Gruber 
kept  at  work  forming  a  corps  of  able  scientists,  and 


660  The  Jesuits 

he  even  made  many  coadjutor  brothers  architects, 
painters  and  skilled  artificers  in  various  crafts.  The 
institution  soon  became  famous  for  its  physical  and 
chemical  laboratories,  its  splendid  theatre,  its  paintings, 
sculpture,  etc.  The  minor  colleges  soon  followed  its 
example,  and  the  Jesuit  churches  resumed  their  custom- 
ary magnificence.  Sodalities  were  established,  distant 
missions  were  undertaken,  and  a'mong  the  neighboring 
Letts,  Jesuit  missionaries  created  a  veritable  Paraguay. 
Catherine  reigned  for  thirty-five  years,  and  until 
her  death,  as  she  had  promised,  she  had  never  failed 
to  protect  the  Society.  Her  word  alone  counted  in 
Russia.  She  was  alone  on  the  throne  for  she  had 
murdered  the  czar,  her  husband,  because  of  his  repudia- 
tion of  her  son  Paul,  and  also  because  of  her 
natural  intolerance  of  an  equal.  It  is  true  that  Father 
Carroll,  in  far-away  America,  was  lamenting  that  his 
brethren  had  such  a  protectress,  but  that  was  beyond 
their  control.  It  can  at  least  be  claimed  that  they 
had  never  yielded  an  iota  in  their  duties  as  Catholic 
priests.  During  the  whole  of  her  reign  she  kept  her 
unfortunate  heir  almost  in  complete  seclusion.  He 
was  confided  to  the  care  chiefly  of  Father  Gruber, 
who  besides  being  a  saint  was  a  man  of  wonderful 
ability.  He  was  a  musician,  a  painter,  an  architect,  a 
physicist  and  a  mathematician.  One  of  his -oil  paintings 
adorns  the  refectory  of  Georgetown  today;  brought 
over,  no  doubt,  by  some  of  the  Polish  Fathers.  It  is 
very  far  from  being  the  work  of  an  amateur.  Naturally, 
therefore,  Paul  took  to  him  kindly,  and  the  affection 
continued  till  the  end.  When  on  the  throne,  he 
multiplied  the  colleges  of  the  Society,  enlarged  the 
novitiate,  installed  the  Fathers  in  the  University  of 
Vilna,  and  even  persuaded  the  Grand  Turk  to  restore 
to  the  Jesuits  their  ancient  missions  on  the 
Archipelago. 


The  Russian  Contingent         661 

The  intimacy  was  so  great  that  Gruber  was  supposed 
to  be  able  to  procure  any  favor  from  Paul  and  hence 
his  life  was  made  miserable  by  the  swarm  of  suitors 
who  beset  him ;  but  he  was  not  foolish  enough  to  forfeit 
the  favor  of  the  prince  by  being  made  a  tool  to  further 
the  selfish  aims  of  the  petitioners.  He  did,  however, 
request  the  czar  to  ask  the  newly-elected  Pope  Pius 
VII  for  an  official  recognition  of  the  Society  in  Russia. 
The  Pope  was  only  too  willing  to  grant  it,  but  the 
lingering  hostility  to  the  Jesuits,  even  in  Rome  itself, 
made  it  somewhat  difficult.  Indeed,  a  certain  number 
of  the  cardinals  pronounced  very  decidedly  against  it, 
and  only  yielded,  when  the  Pope  made  them  take  all 
the  responsibility  of  a  refusal.  He  appointed  a  com- 
mittee of  the  most  hostile  among  them  to  report  on 
the  imperial  request,  thus  bringing  them  face  to  face 
with  the  consequences  of  opposing  the  ruler  of  a  great 
empire  and  converting  him  from  a  friend  into  a  perse- 
cutor of  the  Church.  Looking  at  it  from  that  point 
of  view,  they  quickly  came  to  a  favorable  conclusion, 
and  on  March  7,  1801,  the  Bull  "  Catholicas  Fidei  " 
was  issued,  explicitly  re-establishing  the  Society  of  Jesus 
in  Russia.  It  was  the  first  great  step  to  the  general 
restoration  throughout  the  world  thirteen  years  later. 
The  approbation  arrived  very  opportunely,  for  sixteen 
days  after  its  reception  Paul  I  was  assassinated. 

At  his  accession,  Alexander,  though  less  demon- 
strative than  Paul,  showed  his  esteem  for  the  Society 
to  such  an  extent  that  when  the  General,  Father 
Kareu,  was  at  the  point  of  death,  the  czar  went  in 
person  to  Polotsk  to  offer  his  condolence.  This  con- 
descension was  so  marked  that  Father  Gruber  availed 
himself  of  the  opportunity  to  solicit  the  publication  of 
the  Papal  Bull  which  the  turmoil  consequent  upon 
Paul's  assassination  had  prevented  from  being  officially 
proclaimed.  The  emperor  made  no  difficulty  about 


662  The  Jesuits 

it,  and  issued  a  ukase  to  that  effect.  He  even  went 
further  in  his  approval,  for  when  Gruber  was  elected 
General  in  place  of  Father  Kareu,  he  was  summoned  to 
St.  Petersburg  to  occupy  a  splendidly  equipped  College 
of  Nobles  which  Paul  had  established  in  the  city  itself. 
It  was  there  that  Gruber  met  the  famous  Count  Joseph 
de  Maistre  who  was  at  that  time  Ambassador  of  Sardinia 
at  the  imperial  court.  A  deep  and  sincere  affection 
sprung  up  between  the  two  great  men,  and  in  the 
storm  that,  later  on,  broke  out  against  the  Society, 
de  Maistre  showed  himself  its  fearless  and  devoted 
defender. 

Catherine  II  had,  in  her  time,  attempted  the  colon- 
ization of  the  vast  steppes  of  her  empire,  and  Paul  I  had 
been  energetic  in  carrying  out  her  plans.  Alexander 
I,  also,  was  anxious  to  further  the  project  which 
called  for  not  a  little  heroism  on  the  part  of  those 
who  undertook  it.  Incidentally,  it  would  relieve  the 
government  of  considerable  anxiety  and  worry;  for 
as  the  new  settlers  came  from  every  part  of  Germany, 
and  professed  all  kinds  of  religious  beliefs,  it  was 
considered  to  be  of  primary  importance  politically, 
to  establish  some  sort  of  unity  among  them  and  to 
accustom  them  to  Russian  legislation  and  ways  of 
life.  The  Jesuits  were  selected  for  the  task,  and  in 
spite  of  the  hardships  and  the  isolation  to  which  they 
were  subjected,  and  in  face,  also,  of  the  hatred  and 
opposition  of  their  enemies  as  well  as  the  usually 
surly  mood  of  the  brutalized  immigrants  who  had 
been  driven  out  of  their  own  country  by  starvation 
and  oppression,  order  was  restored  within  a  year, 
and  the  government  reported  that  these  few  priests 
had  achieved  what  a  whole  army  of  soldiers  could 
never  have  accomplished.  The  missions  of  Astrakhan 
were  said  to  be  similarly  successful.  But  it  appears 


The  Russian  Contingent         663 

in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  that  no  solid  or 
permanent  results  had  been  effected. 

A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  us  that  these  two 
fields  of  endeavor  were  at  the  extreme  eastern  and 
western  ends  of  Russia's  vast  empire.  The  Riga  district 
is  on  the  Baltic  or,  more  properly,  on  the  Gulf  of  Riga. 
Below  it,  are  the  now  famous  cities  of  Koningsberg  and 
Dantzic.  Astrakhan  is  on  the  Caspian  Sea  into  which 
the  great  River  Volga  empties.  On  both  sides  of  this 
river,  as  in  the  city  itself,  the  Jesuits  had  established 
their  mission  posts.  But  from  both  the  Baltic  and  the 
Caspian  they  had  to  withdraw,  when  driven  out  of 
Russia  by  Alexander  in  1820. 

The  present  condition  of  these  two  sections  of  the 
now  dismembered  empire  is  most  deplorable.  Indeed, 
as  early  as  1864  Marshall  (Christian  Missions,  I,  74) 
says  of  them:  "  Let  us  begin  with  the  Provinces  of  the 
Baltic.  The  Letts  who  inhabit  Courland  and  the 
southern  half  of  Livonia,  though  long  normally  Chris- 
tians and  surrounded  by  Lutherans  and  Russo- Greeks, 
sacrifice  to  household  spirits  by  setting  out  food  for 
them  in  their  gardens  or  houses  or  under  old  oak 
trees.  Of  the  Esthonians,  Kohl  says :  '  The  old  practices 
of  heathenism  have  been  preserved  among  them 
more  completely  than  among  any  other  Lutheran 
people.  There  are  many  spots  where  the  peasants  yet 
offer  up  sacrifices.'  Let  us  now  accompany  Mr. 
Laurence  Oliphant  down  the  Volga  to  the  Caspian 
Sea.  Everywhere  his  experience  is  uniform.  The 
Kalmuks  whom  he  discovered  are  still  Buddhists. 
Near  the  mouth  of  the  Volga  he  visits  a  large  and 
populous  village  in  a  state  of  utter  heathenism  and 
apparently  destined  to  remain  so.  At  Sarepta  near 
Astrakhan,  the  Moravians  had  attempted  to  convert 
the  neighboring  heathen  but  the  Greek  clergy  prevented 


664  The  Jesuits 

them.  One  tribe  is  made  up  of  followers  of  the  Grand 
Lama;  another  of  pagans;  a  third  of  Mahometans. 
In  the  city  of  Kazan,  once  the  capital  of  a  powerful 
nation,  there  are  20,000  Mahometans,  and  the  immense 
Tatar  population  of  the  entire  region  reaching  as  far 
as  Astrakhan  has  adopted  a  combination  of  Christianity, 
Islamism  and  Shamanism,  or  are  as  out  and  out  pagans 
as  they  were  before  being  annexed  to  the  Russian 
Empire." 

Among  these  degraded  peoples  the  Jesuits  were  at 
work  while  they  were  directing  their  colleges  at  Polotsk, 
St.  Petersburg  and  elsewhere  until  1814. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    RALLYING 

Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  —  Fathers  of  the  Faith  —  Fusion  — 
Pac'canari  —  The  Rupture  —  Exodus  to  Russia  —  Varin  in  Paris  — 
Clorividre  —  Carroll's  doubts  —  Pignatelli  —  Poirot  in  China  — 
Grassi's  Odyssey. 

WHILE  the  Society  was  maintaining  its  corporate 
life  in  Russia  several  contributory  sources  began  to 
flow  towards  it  from  various  parts  of  Europe.  The 
most  notable  was  the  association  that  was  formed 
under  the  eyes  and  with  the  approval  of  the  wise  and 
virtuous  Jacques-Andre  Emery,  the  superior  of  the 
Seminary  of  Paris,  who  himself  had  been  trained  in 
the  Jesuit  college  of  Macon.  Under  his  guidance  and 
very  much  attached  to  him,  was  a  little  group  of 
seminarians  consisting  of  Charles  and  Maurice  de 
Broglie,  sons  of  the  celebrated  Marshal  of  that  name, 
both  of  whom  bore  the  title  of  Prince;  Frangois 
Eleonore  de  Tournely,  who  was  the  animating  spirit 
of  the  little  association,  and,  omitting  others,  Joseph 
Varin  who  succeeded  de  Tournely  as  the  guide  of  the 
growing  community. 

When  the  Revolution  broke  out,  Varin  yielding  to 
his  martial  instincts,  left  the  seminary  and  became  a 
soldier  in  the  royalist  army;  but  Charles  de  Broglie 
kept  the  group  together  and  under  the  direction  of 
Pey,  a  distinguished  canon  of  Paris,  they  plunged  into 
the  study  of  the  spiritual  life  and  continued  to  dream 
of  an  association  which  might  in  one  way  or  another 
take  up  the  work  of  the  suppressed  Society  of  Jesus. 
In  1791  they  were  compelled  to  seek  a  refuge  in  Luxem- 
bourg. Two  years  later,  they  fled  to  Antwerp,  and 

665  " 


666  The  Jesuits 

finally  found  themselves  in  the  old  Jesuit  villa  of 
Louvain,  which  is  still  standing  near  the  chateau  of 
the  Due  d'Arenberg.  There  they  were  joined  by  de 
Broglie's  brother,  Xavier,  and  by  Pierre  Leblanc, 
both  of  whom  had  served  for  two  years  in  the  army 
of  the  Prince  de  Conde.  Varin  joined  them  in  that 
year.  He  had  been  a  soldier  ever  since  the  seminary 
had  closed,  and  had  given  up  all  idea  of  ever  resuming 
the  soutane.  But  it  happened  that  he  was  absent 
from  his  regiment  when  a  battle  occurred,  and  in 
disgust  he  had  gone  to  Belgium  to  ask  to  be  transferred 
to  another  corps.  While  there,  he  fell  into  the  hands 
of  his  old  seminary  friends;  in  a  few  days  his  former 
fervor  returned  and  he  was  accepted  as  the  sixth 
member  of  what  de  Tournely  had  determined  to  call 
"  The  Society  of  the  Sacred  Heart." 

On  the  very  day  of  Varin 's  entrance,  he  and  five 
associates  started  off  on  foot,  with  their  bags  on  their 
backs,  to  beg  their  way  to  Bavaria.  It  took  them  five 
days  to  get  as  far  as  Augsburg,  and  there  they  remained, 
though  their  intention  was  to  establish  themselves  at 
Munich.  But  the  Bishop  of  Augsburg  told  them  that 
if  they  wanted  to  learn  what  the  Society  of  Jesus  was, 
no  better  place  could  be  found  than  the  city  in  which 
they  then  found  themselves,  for  the  memory  of  many 
illustrious  Jesuits  was  still  fresh  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  The  bishop  who  gave  them  this  welcome 
hospitality  was  Clemens  Wenzeslaus,  who  besides 
being  a  prelate  was  a  prince  of  Saxony  and  Poland. 
Yielding  to  his  advice,  they  took  up  their  abode  in 
Augsburg  where  they  were  soon  joined  by  two  dis- 
tinguished men  who  were  afterwards  to  be  conspicuous 
in  the  reconstructed  Society,  Grivel,  who  was  to  be 
sent  to  Georgetown  in  America  as  master  of  novices, 
and  the  famous  Rozaven,  who  was  to  save  the  Society 
from  wreck  in  the  first  general  congregation  held  after 


The  Rallying  667 

the  Restoration,  and  who  was  subsequently  to  be  the 
assistant  General  both  of  Fortis  and  Roothaan. 

As  they  were  all  Frenchmen,  they  were  necessarily  de- 
barred from  apostolic  work  among  the  people  whose  lan- 
guage they  could  not  speak.  But  that  was  providential, 
for  they  had  thus  a  better  opportunity  to  devote  them- 
selves to  the  study  of  the  spiritual  life.  On  March  12, 
1796,  Varin  and  some  others  were  promoted  to  the 
priesthood,  and  about  the  middle  of  December,  they 
were  installed  first  at  Neudorf  and  then  at  Hagenbrunn, 
near  Vienna,  as  the  invading  armies  of  Moreau  and 
Jourdan  made  Augsburg  an  unsafe  place  to  live  in. 
They  were  now  sixteen  in  number  and  their  close 
imitation  of  the  Jesuit  mode  of  life  caused  a  sensation 
there,  as  Austria  had  only  a  short  time  before  suppressed 
the  Society. 

De  Tournely  died  on  July  9,  1797,  and  Varin  was 
elected  in  his  place  on  the  first  ballot.  The  organization 
however,  had  not  yet  received  the  authorization  of  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  for  as  Napoleon  held  him  a  prisoner 
now  in  one  place  now  in  another,  it  was  impossible  to 
make  any  personal  application  for  his  approval  of  the 
new  organization.  Hence,  a  petition  was  drawn  up, 
signed  by  twenty-five  or  thirty  bishops  asking  the 
Holy  Father's  approbation.  The  answer  came  in 
the  month  of  September  1798,  assuring  them  that  their 
project  afforded  him  the  greatest  consolation,  and 
with  all  his  heart  he  gave  them  his  blessing. 

The  establishment  of  this  Society  was  not  as  has 
been  said  "  the  underhand  work  of  the  Jesuits,"  for 
Varin  and  his  associates  had  as  yet  never  met  any 
member  of  the  old  Society,  nor  were  they  aware  of  the 
existence  of  any  similar  organization  in  Italy.  Indeed, 
when  a  letter  came  from  Rome,  signed  Nicolas  Pac- 
canari,  announcing  that  he  was  their  superior,  and 
was  such,  "  in  virtue  of  an  express  wish  of  the  Pope 


668  The  Jesuits 

to  have  the  two  communities  united,"  the  associates 
regarded  it  as  the  abolition  of  their  Society  of  the 
"  Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart/'  especially  as  this 
unknown  individual  announced  that  he  was  then  on 
his  way  to  Hagenbrunn  to  carry  the  plan  into  effect. 

Nicolas  Paccanari  was  a  very  curious  personage. 
He  had  no  education  whatever,  and  in  his  early  life 
had  been  engaged  in  various  occupations  which 
scarcely  seemed  to  fit  him  to  be  the  founder  of  a 
religious  order.  He  was  born  near  Trent,  and  had  been 
for  some  time  a  soldier,  then  a  merchant  on  a  small 
scale,  and  when  swindled  by  an  associate,  he  took  to 
tramping  from  town  to  town,  vending,  as  Guid£e 
says,  "  objects  of  curiosity,"  that  is,  he  was  an  itinerant 
peddler.  He  was  a  pious  man,  and  as  he  belonged  to 
one  of  the  guilds  in  the  Caravita  at  Rome,  he  was 
prompted  by  the  spirit  that  prevailed  in  that  famous 
Oratory  to  do  something  more  than  usual  for  the  glory 
of  God.  He  first  thought  of  being  a  Carmelite,  and 
then  the  fancy  seized  him  that  he  was  destined  to 
resuscitate  the  Society  of  Jesus.  Strangely  enough, 
although  he  was  not  even  a  priest,  he  was  joined  by 
a  doctor  of  the  Sapienza  and  two  French  ecclesiastics, 
Halnat  and  Epinette,  the  latter  of  whom  entered  the 
Society  and  later  taught  philosophy  at  Georgetown 
D.  C.  He  was  undoubtedly  clever,  and  so  plausible  in 
his  speech  that  he  won  the  confidence  of  the  most 
distinguished  personages  in  Europe:  cardinals  and 
noblemen  and  heads  of  religious  orders,  with  the  result 
that  he  and  his  two  friends  made  their  vows  on  the 
eve  of  the  Assumption  1797,  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Caravita,  and  Paccanari  was  elected  superior.  He 
succeeded  even  in  seeing  the  Pope,  who  was  then  a 
prisoner  at  Spoleto,  and  obtained  his  approval  and 
blessing.  He  called  his  organization  "  The  Society  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Faith  of  Jesus,"  which  was  shortened 


The  Rallying  669 

later  into  "  The  Fathers  of  the  Faith."  In  Bohmer- 
Monod  we  find  them  styled  "  The  Brothers  of  the 
Faith." 

Paccanari  failed  to  arrive  at  Hagenbrunn  for  a 
considerable  time,  for  he  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  police  and  was  kept  a  prisoner  in  Sant'  Angelo. 
His  restless  activity  and  constant  change  of  abode  had 
attracted  the  notice  of  the  authorities,  and  he  was 
suspected  of  being  concerned  in  some  political  plot 
against  the  Roman  Republic,  which  the  French  had 
just  then  set  up  in  the  Papal  dominions.  His  associates 
were  arrested  at  the  same  time,  and  were  not  released 
for  four  months.  It  was  during  this  time  of  incarcera- 
tion that  Paccanari  sent  a  second  letter  to  Varin 
more  startling  than  the  first.  It  announced  that  the 
Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  had  been  received  into 
the  Paccanari  association,  and  that  Father  Varin  was 
appointed  superior  of  the  society  in  Germany.  Such 
a  communication  from  a  man  whom  they  had  not 
even  seen,  made  them  conclude  that  they  had  to  do 
with  a  lunatic.  Finally,  in  the  month  of  February  1799, 
a  third  letter  arrived,  clearing  up  what  had  been  said 
in  the  second.  The  explanation  offered  was  that  not 
knowing  if  he  would  ever  be  let  out  of  jail,  and  not 
wishing  that  the  privileges  he  had  received  from  the 
Holy  See  should  lapse,  he  had  as  a  precaution  admitted 
Varin  and  his  associates  into  the  Society  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Faith. 

When  at  last  he  was  released,  he  started  for  Vienna, 
and  on  his  way,  made  it  his  business  to  see  some  of 
the  dispersed  Jesuits  who  were  in  Parma  and  Venice. 
They  were  very  kind  to  him,  procured  him  financial 
assistance,  but  did  not  welcome  him  with  the  enthusi- 
asm he  expected.  They  had  remarked  that  he  never 
spoke  of  uniting  his  associates  with  the  Jesuits  of 
Russia.  Paccanari  was  keen  enough  to  divine  their 


670  The  Jesuits 

reason,  and  he  was  therefore  only  the  more  eager  to 
affiliate  with  the  people  at  Hagenbriinn,  for  he  had 
only  twenty  members  of  his  own,  not  more  than  three 
of  whom  were  priests.  He  reached  Vienna  on  April  3, 
and  was  naturally  received  with  some  reserve,  but 
when  Cardinal  Migazzi  and  the  nuncio  made  known 
the  desire  of  the  Pope,  all  opposition  ceased  and  the 
discussion  of  the  mode  of  union  began.  The  sessions 
lasted  ten  days  and  ended  by  the  election  of  Paccanari 
as  general.  The  Society  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  thus  passed  out  of  existence  on  April  18,  1799. 

The  house  at  Hagenbriinn  at  once  took  on  a  different 
aspect.  There  was  less  study,  fewer  exercises  of  piety, 
the  recreations  were  immoderately  prolonged,  and 
the  Fathers  were  actually  compelled  to  take  up  a 
series  of  athletic  exercises  that  made  them  think  they 
were  back  in  their  college  days.  Of  course  this  soon 
became  intolerable,  but  little  else  could  have  been 
expected  from  a  man  like  Paccanari,  who  was  absolutely 
ignorant  of  the  first  elements  of  community  life. 
What  is  still  more  curious  is  that  he  was  not  even 
yet  tonsured;  but  he  was,  nevertheless,  so  wonderfully 
insinuating  in  his  manner  that  he  succeeded  in  per- 
suading everyone  outside  of  his  own  household  that  he 
was  the  man  of  the  hour.  The  public  praised  him,  but 
his  subjects  were  exasperated  at  his  opinionativeness, 
his  despotism,  his  repeated  absences  from  home,  and 
above  all  by  his  avoidance  of  all  association  with  the 
dispersed  Jesuits.  All  that  quickly  convinced  the 
Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  that  a  serious  mistake 
had  been  made.  It  is  true  that  on  August  n,  1799, 
Paccanari  made  a  formal  announcement  that  his  sole 
purpose  was  to  amalgamate  with  the  Jesuits  of  Russia, 
but  it  was  tolerably  clear  that  if  he  ever  had  any  such 
intention  it  was  rapidly  vanishing  from  his  mind.  He 
began  by  founding  several  establishments  in  various 


The  Rallying  671 

parts  of  Europe,  even  Moravia  being  favored  in  this 
respect.  In  this  distribution,  de  Broglie  and  Rosaven 
were  dispatched  to  England,  and  Halnat,  Roger  and 
Varin  to  France. 

After  the  example  of  the  old  Jesuits,  the  first  work 
that  Varin  and  his  companions  undertook  when  they 
arrived  in  Paris  was  the  care  of  the  hospitals  of  La 
Salpetriere  and  Bicetre,  the  first  of  which  had  6,000 
patients  and  had  not  seen  a  priest  in  its  wards  for  ten 
years.  The  government  now  admitted  the  folly  of  its 
previous  methods  of  procedure,  and  sought  the  help 
of  the  ministers  of  religion.  A  tremendous  trans- 
formation was  immediately  effected.  Nor  could  it 
have  been  otherwise,  for  the  zealous  priests  spent 
thirteen  and  fourteen  hours  a  day  there,  going  from 
bed  to  bed  to  comfort  the  patients. 

It  was  Halnat  who  first  discovered  the  existence  of 
the  venerable  Father  de  Cloriviere,  a  Jesuit  of  the  old 
Society,  who  was  to  be  the  first  provincial  of  France 
after  the  restoration.  The  pious  Mile,  de  Cice,  a 
niece  of  the  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  also  comes  into 
view  at  this  period.  She  had  been  the  directress  of 
an  association  of  ladies  established  by  Father  de 
Cloriviere  to  supply  as  far  as  possible  the  place  of  the 
expelled  nuns,  in  looking  after  the  young  girls  of  Paris. 
Varin  became  her  spiritual  guide  and  also  directed 
Mile,  de  Jugon,  a  remarkable  woman,  who  subsequently 
married  a  wealthy  nobleman;  but  at  his  death  she 
resumed  with  great  ardor  the  charitable  works  which 
had  previously  reflected  such  glory  upon  her  piety 
and  zeal. 

Just  at  this  time,  an  attempt  was  made  to  assassinate 
Napoleon.  An  "  infernal  machine,"  as  it  was  called, 
was  exploded  under  his  carriage,  and  Mile,  de  Cice 
was  suspected  of  knowing  something  about  it,  chiefly 
because  of  her  association  with  the  mysterious  person- 


672  The  Jesuits 

ages  who  had  recently  arrived  in  France  —  Varin  and 
his  companions.  Indeed,  although  the  good  woman's 
holiness  of  life  was  vouched  for  by  a  great  number 
of  witnesses,  chiefly  the  beneficiaries  of  her  charity, 
she  might  have  been  condemned  to  death,  had  not 
Father  Varin  appeared  in  court,  where  he  made  a 
candid  explanation  of  the  character  of  his  society, 
as  having  for  its  only  purpose  religion  and  charity, 
without  any  political  affiliations  whatever.  His  good 
temper  at  the  trial  was  a  happy  offset  to  Father  Halnat's 
outburst  of  anger  which  almost  provoked  an  un- 
favorable verdict.  Later  Halnat  applied  for  admission 
to  the  Society  of  Jesus,  but  it  was  thought  unsafe  to 
admit  him. 

At  this  juncture,  there  appears  the  figure  of 
Madeleine-Sophie  Barat,  the  foundress  of  the  Ladies 
of  the  Sacred  Heart,  a  title  chosen  at  that  time  not 
to  indicate  any  social  distinction;  indeed  Madame 
Barat  was  from  people  in  very  ordinary  circumstances, 
but  the  name  "  religious  "  was  in  disfavor  at  that 
turbulent  period,  and  it  was  thought  advisable  not  to 
obtrude  unnecessarily  the  fact  that  she  and  her  asso- 
ciates formed  a  community  of  nuns.  They  were 
merely  des  dames  pieuses,  who  lived  together  for 
charitable  and  educational  work.  The  name  "  dames  " 
is  an  old  title  for  nuns  in  England. 

She  was  the  sister  of  Father  Louis  Barat,  who  was 
one  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith,  and  when  Varin  was 
looking  around  for  some  capable  woman  to  give  the 
girls  of  Paris  and  elsewhere  a  Christian  education, 
Barat  suggested  her  as  a  possibility.  He  had  taught 
her  Latin,  Greek,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  natural 
philosophy,  besides  subjecting  her  to  a  very  rigid  and 
somewhat  harsh  training  in  asceticism.  She  was  then 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  with  her  usual  habit  of  sub- 
mission, she  and  her  three  companions  addressed 


The  Rallying  673 

themselves  to  the  task.  This  was  in  1801.  Before 
1857,  she  had  succeeded  in  establishing  more  than 
eighty  foundations  in  various  parts  of  the  world  and 
she  is  now  ranked  among  the  Beatified. 

To  Varin  must  also  be  accorded  the  credit  of  form- 
ing in  the  religious  life  another  woman  who  is  among 
the  Blessed;  the  Foundress  of  the  Sisters  of  Notre- 
Dame  de  Namur,  Julie  Billiart.  Perhaps  his  prayers 
had  something  to  do  with  the  restoration  to  health 
of  this  remarkable  woman,  who  had  been  a  paralytic 
and  almost  speechless  for  thirty-one  years.  She 
recovered  her  youthful  vigor  in  1804,  at  the  end  of 
a  novena  to  the  Sacred  Heart,  which  had  been  suggested 
by  her  confessor.  She  was  then  at  Amiens,  and 
Varin  united  her  and  her  companions  into  a  teaching 
community,  and  drew  up  the  rules  and  constitutions 
which  they  have  undeviatingly  adhered  to  ever  since. 
Indeed  it  was  this  very  fidelity  that  gave  them  the 
name  of  Notre  Dame  de  Namur.  For  in  the  absence 
of  Varin  a  prominent  ecclesiastic  attempted  to  modify 
their  rule,  whereupon  the  indignant  women  left  Amiens 
and  emigrated  in  a  body  to  Namur.  That  city  has 
ever  since  been  regarded  as  their  spiritual  birthplace. 
In  the  space  of  twelve  years,  namely  between  1804 
and  1812,  this  quondam  paralytic  founded  fifteen 
convents,  and  made  as  many  as  one  hundred  and 
twenty  journeys,  some  of  them  very  long  and  toilsome, 
in  the  prosecution  of  her  great  work  for  the  Church. 
Like  the  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  the  Sisters  of 
Notre  Dame  de  Namur  have  establishments  all  over 
the  world. 

Meantime,  a  very  marked  difference  had  displayed 
itself  in  the  tone  of  the  various  members  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Faith.  Those  who  had  been  followers  of 
Paccanari  had  no  idea  whatever  of  the  real  nature  of 
religious  life,  whereas  the  disciples  of  Varin  for  the 

43 


674  The  Jesuits 

most  part  were  spiritual  men  and  eager  in  the  work  of 
perfection.  How  noticeable  this  was,  is  revealed  in 
a  letter  from  Bishop  Carroll  in  America.  He  had 
asked  for  help  from  the  new  organization,  and  four 
priests  had  been  promised  him,  but  only  one  arrived  - 
an  Italian  named  Zucchi.  Whether  he  lost  his  way  or 
not,  or  fancied  he  could  follow  his  own  guidance,  he 
went  first  to  Quebec,  but  was  promptly  informed  by  the 
government  officials  there  that  his  presence  was 
undesirable.  He  finally  reached  Maryland,  and  Carroll 
describes  him  in  a  letter  to  Father  Plowden  in  England 
as  follows:  "  There  is  a  priest  here  named  Zucchi, 
a  Romano  di  nascita,  a  man  of  narrow  understanding, 
who  does  nothing  but  pine  for  the  arrival  of  his  com- 
panions. Meantime  he  will  undertake  no  work. 
From  this  sample  of  the  new  order,  I  am  led  to  believe 
that  they  are  very  little  instructed  in  the  maxims  of 
the  Institute  of  our  venerable  mother,  the  Society. 
Though  they  profess  to  have  no  other  rule  than  ours, 
Zucchi  seems  to  know  nothing  of  the  structure  of  our 
Society,  nor  even  to  have  read  the  Regula  Communes 
which  our  very  novices  know  almost  by  heart." 

The  bishop  had  also  heard  of  the  establishment  of 
one  of  the  communities  of  women  by  Father  Varin, 
and  that  made  him  still  more  suspicious  about  the 
genuineness  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith.  "  In  one 
point,"  he  writes  to  Plowden,  "  they  seem  to  have 
departed  from  St.  Ignatius,  by  engrafting  on  their 
Institution  a  new  order  of  nuns,  which  is  to  be  under 
their  government." 

The  rupture  in  the  ranks  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Faith  took  place  in  1803.  In  the  preceding  year, 
Rozaven  and  Varin  had  gone  to  Rome  and  were  there 
confirmed  in  their  suspicions  that  Paccanari  was  not 
sincere  in  his  protestations  about  his  desire  to  join 
the  Jesuits  in  Russia.  They  were  also  shocked  at  the 


The  Rallying  675 

lack  of  religious  spirit  in  the  Paccanarist  house  in 
Rome.  In  the  following  year,  Rozaven  again  returned 
to  Rome,  and  besides  being  confirmed  in  his  con- 
viction that  Paccanari  was  working  for  the  development 
of  an  independent  society,  he  was  informed  of  certain 
charges  against  the  personal  character  of  the  man. 
Paccanari's  explanation  of  the  accusations,  far  from 
convincing  Rozaven,  only  confirmed  him  in  his  opinion. 
The  result  was  that  he  obtained  a  private  audience 
with  the  Pope,  and  was  authorized  to  sever  his  con- 
nection with  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith. 

To  his  amazement,  he  found  on  his  return  to  London, 
that  his  associates  had  already  taken  the  matter  in 
hand  for  themselves  and  had  applied  to  Father  Gruber 
in  Russia,  for  admission  to  the  Society.  The  petition 
was  granted,  not,  however  to  enter  corporately  but 
individually,  namely  after  each  one's  vocation  had 
been  carefully  examined.  The  application  was  to  be 
made  to  Father  Strickland  in  England,  who  had  been 
a  member  of  the  old  Society.  With  other  candidates 
from  Holland  and  Germany,  twenty-five  new  members 
passed  over  to  Russia. 

It  is  very  distressing  to  note  that  Father  Charles 
de  Broglie,  who  with  de  Tournely  had  initiated  the 
whole  movement,  was  not  in  this  group.  He  and 
three  others  remained  in  London  as  secular  priests, 
and  unfortunately,  his  relations  with  a  certain  number 
of  refractory  Frenchmen  led  him  into  the  schism 
known  as  La  Petite  Eglise.  He  persisted  in  his  rebellion 
as  late  as  1842,  when  he  at  last  made  his  submission 
to  the  Church. 

Rozaven  wrote  from  Polotsk  to  Varin,  giving  him 
an  account  of  what  had  happened  to  him  in  Rome, 
insisting  on  the  justifiableness  of  the  act,  and  reminding 
him  that  they  had  joined  the  Fathers  of  the  Sacred 
Heart,  and  subsequently  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith,  solely 


676  The  Jesuits 

for  the  sake  of  uniting  with  the  Jesuits  in  Russia. 
As  Paccanari  had  not  only  no  intention  of  carrying 
out  that  purpose,  but  was  doing  everything  in  his 
power  to  prevent  it,  the  duty  of  allegiance  ceased, 
and  so  the  Pope  had  decided.  Forthwith,  Varin,  with 
the  approval  of  all  his  subjects  in  France,  notified 
Paccanari  that  they  had  severed  all  connection  with  his 
Society.  Meantime  however,  they  retained  the  name 
of  Fathers  of  the  Faith. 

But  this  independence  was  not  satisfactory  to  Varin. 
What  was  he  to  do?  Should  he  disband  his  com- 
munities which  were  performing  very  effective  work  in 
France  or  wait  for  developments?  The  Apostolic 
nuncio  at  Paris,  della  Genga,  decided  that  he  should 
continue  as  he  was  till  more  favorable  circumstances 
presented  themselves.  They  had  not  long  to  wait. 
The  emperor's  uncle,  Cardinal  Fesch,  had  thus  far 
protected  them,  but  in  1807  Napoleon  publicly  and 
angrily  reproached  him  for  this  patronage,  and  on 
November  ist  ordered  all  the  Fathers  to  report  to  their 
respective  dioceses  within  fifteen  days,  under  penalty 
of  being  sent  to  the  deadly  convict  colony  of  Guiana. 
Fouche  offered  several  positions  of  honor  to  Varin 
and  on  his  refusal  to  accept  them,  drove  him  out  of 
Paris.  By  this  time,  however,  Varin  was  a  Jesuit  and 
was  following  the  directions  of  the  venerable  Father 
Cloriviere  who  had  been  empowered  to  receive  him. 

The  secession  of  the  Fathers  of  France  and  England 
was  quickly  imitated  by  the  communities  in  other  parts 
of  Europe.  Meanwhile  Paccanari 's  conduct  became 
a  public  scandal.  A  canonical  process  was  instituted 
against  him  in  1808,  and  he  was  condemned  to  ten 
years'  imprisonment.  But  when  the  French  took 
possession  of  the  city  in  1809  and  opened  the  prison 
doors,  Paccanari  disappeared  from  view,  and  no  one 
ever  knew  what  became  of  him. 


The  Rallying  677 

While  the  work  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith  was  pro- 
gressing in  France  and  elsewhere,  the  saintly  Pignatelli, 
who  had  been  Angel  Guardian  of  the  Spanish  Jesuits 
when  they  were  expelled  from  their  native  land,  was 
accomplishing  much  for  the  general  establishment  of 
the  Society.  After  landing  in  Italy  where  the  Jesuits 
were  as  yet  unmolested,  he  had  betaken  himself,  with 
the  advice  of  the  provincial  to  Ferrara,  and  there 
housed  the  exiles  as  best  he  could.  He  also  established 
a  novitiate  in  connection  with  the  college  which  had 
been  handed  over  to  him;  but  all  this  was  swept  away 
when  the  Brief  of  Clement  XIV  suppressed  the  entire 
Society  in  1773.  Of  course,  the  first  thought  of 
Pignatelli  after  this  disaster  was  to  join  his  brethren 
in  Russia,  and  with  that  in  view  he  wrote  to  Pope 
Pius  VI,-  who  had  succeeded  Clement  XIV,  asking 
him  if  the  Jesuits  whom  Catherine  II  had  sheltered, 
really  belonged  to  the  Society.  The  reply  delighted 
him  beyond  measure,  for  it  told  him  that  he  might  go 
to  Russia  with  a  safe  conscience  and  put  on  the  habit 
of  the  Society.  The  Jesuits  there  really  belonged  to 
the  Society  for  the  Brief  of  Suppression  had  never 
reached  that  country.  The  Pontiff  also  added  that  he 
would  restore  the  Society  as  soon  as  possible;  and  if 
he  were  not  able  to  do  so  he  would  recommend  it  to 
his  successor. 

Pignatelli's  joy  knew  no  bounds,  and  he  immediately 
prepared  for  his  journey  to  the  North,  but  the 
Providence  of  God  kept  him  in  Italy,  for  the  Duke 
of  Parma,  though  a  son  of  Charles  III  of  Spain,  had 
resolved  to  recall  the  Jesuits  to  his  Duchy,  and  for  that 
purpose  had  written  to  Catherine  II  of  Russia  to  ask 
for  three  members  of  the  Society  to  organize  the  houses. 
The  empress  was  only  too  glad  to  accede  to  his  wish; 
on  February,  1794,  three  Jesuits  arrived  in  Parma 
and  began  their  work  at  Calorno,  just  when  Pius  VI 


678  The  Jesuits 

was  passing  through  that  city  on  his  way  to  the  prisons 
of  France.  The  opportunity  was  taken  advantage  of 
to  ask  the  august  captive  for  authorization  to  open 
a  novitiate  and  he  most  willingly  granted  the  request. 
Panizzoni,  who  was  then  provincial  of  Italy,  appointed 
Pignatelli  as  superior  and  master  of  novices.  Unfortu- 
nately the  Duke  of  Parma  died,  and  the  Duchy  was 
taken  over  by  France;  however,  the  Jesuits  were  not 
molested  for  a  year  and  a  half,  and  during  this  time 
Pignatelli,  who  was  exercising  the  office  of  provincial, 
succeeded  in  having  the  Society  restored  in  Naples 
and  Sicily.  This  was  in  1804.  But  when  Napoleon 
laid  his  hands  on  the  whole  of  the  peninsula  an  order 
was  formulated  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits. 
Fortunately  its  execution  was  not  rigorously  enforced 
and  colleges  were  established  in  Rome,  Tivoli,  Sardinia 
and  Orvieto. 

Meantime  matters  were  progressing  favorably  in 
Russia,  so  much  so  that  in  1803  Father  Angiolini  was 
sent  as  imperial  ambassador  to  the  Pope  to  solicit  alms 
for  the  missions.  When  he  appeared  in  Rome  dressed 
as  a  Jesuit,  he  found  himself  the  sensation  of  the  hour. 
The  Sovereign  Pontiff  received  him  with  effusive 
affection  and  granted  all  that  he  asked.  He  remained 
there  as  procurator  of  the  Society,  and  in  the  following 
year,  was  able  to  communicate  to  Father  Gruber  the 
pleasing  news  that,  at  the  request  of  King  Ferdinand, 
the  Society  had  been  re-established  in  the  Two  Sicilies. 
Father  Pignatelli  was  made  provincial,  and  as  many 
as  170  of  those  who  had  survived  after  Tanucci  had 
driven  them  out  thirty-seven  years  previously  came 
from  the  various  places  that  had  sheltered  them  during 
the  Suppression  to  resume  their  former  way  of  life. 
Several  of  them  who  had  been  made  bishops  asked 
the  Pope  for  permission  to  return  but  all  were  refused 
except  two,  Avogado  of  Verona  and  Bencassa  of  Carpi. 


The  Rallying  679 

The  whole  kingdom  welcomed  back  the  exiles  with 
enthusiasm.  The  King  came  in  person  to  open  the 
Church  which  he  had  persistently  refused  to  enter 
ever  since  the  expulsion ;  at  the  first  Mass  he  and  the 
entire  royal  family  received  Holy  Communion.  He 
also  gave  the  Fathers  their  former  college,  and  endowed 
it  with  an  annual  income  of  forty  thousand  ducats. 
This  example  encouraged  others;  colleges  were  founded 
everywhere,  and  the  number  of  applicants  was  so 
great  that  the  conditions  for  admission  to  the  Society 
had  to  be  made  as  rigorous  as  possible.  Unfortunately 
this  happy  condition  of  affairs  did  not  last  long,  for  in 
March  1806,  Joseph  Bonaparte  replaced  Ferdinand  IV 
on  the  throne  of  Naples,  and  the  Jesuits  again  took 
the  road  of  exile.  The  Pope  offered  them  a  refuge 
in  Rome,  and  when  they  protested  that  such  a  course 
would  draw  on  him  the  wrath  of  Napoleon,  he  replied 
that  they  were  suffering  for  the  Church,  and  that  he 
must  receive  them  just  as  Clement  XIII  had  done 
when  they  were  exiled  from  Naples. 

While  these  events  were  occurring  in  Italy  and  France, 
an  opportunity  was  presented  to  the  Jesuits  of  Russia 
to  revive  their  old  missions  in  China.  Unfortunately 
it  was  frustrated.  The  story  as  told  in  the  "  Wood- 
stock Letters"  (IV,  113)  is  a  veritable  Odyssey,  and 
is  particularly  interesting  to  Americans,  for  the  reason 
that  the  principal  personage  concerned  in  what  proved 
to  be  a  very  heroic  enterprise  became  subsequently  the 
President  of  Georgetown  College :  John  Anthony  Grassi. 

Grassi  was  a  native  of  Bergamo,  and  in  1799  entered 
the  novitiate  established  by  Father  Pignatelli  at 
Calorno.  He  thus  received  a  genuine  Jesuit  training 
and  escaped  the  influence  of  the  establishments  which 
Paccanari  was  inaugurating  in  Italy  just  as  that  time. 
From  Calorno  he  was  sent  to  Russia,  and  was  made 
Rector  of  the  College  of  Nobles  which  was  dependent 


680  The  Jesuits 

upon  the  establishment  at  Polotsk.  Meanwhile,  he 
was  preparing  himself  for  the  missions  of  Astrakhan, 
and  was  already  deep  in  the  study  of  Armenian  when  the 
Chinese  matter  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  Father 
Gruber  by  a  letter  from  a  member  of  the  old  Society, 
who  had  contrived  to  remain  in  China  ever  since  the 
Suppression.  He  was  Louis  Poirot.  It  appears  that 
his  ability  as  a  musician  had  charmed  the  emperor, 
and  thus  enabled  him  to  continue  his  evangelical 
work  in  the  Celestial  Empire. 

Hearing  of  the  establishment  in  Russia,  he  bethought 
himself  of  having  the  Jesuits  resume  their  old  place  in 
China,  evidently  unaware  that  the  Brief  of  1801 
expressly  declared  that  the  Society  had  been  established 
"  only  within  the  limits  of  the  Russian  Empire." 
But  not  knowing  this  he  availed  himself  of  the  return 
of  a  Lazarist  missionary  and  wrote  two  letters;  one  to 
the  Pope  and  another  to  the  Father  General  in  which 
he  said:  "  I  am  eighty  years  of  age  and  there  is  only 
one  thing  I  care  to  live  for.  It  is  to  see  the  Jesuits 
return  to  China."  His  letter  to  the  General  ends  with 
a  request  to  be  permitted  to  renew  his  vows,  "so  as 
to  die  a  true  son  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  Between 
the  time  he  wrote  this  letter  and  its  arrival  in  Europe, 
the  limitation  of  the  approval  of  the  Society  to  Russia 
had  been  withdrawn,  and  Father  Gruber  immediately 
set  about  granting  the  venerable  and  faithful  old 
man's  request.  Happily  a  solemn  legation  was  just 
then  to  leave  St.  Petersburg  for  China,  and  the  ambas- 
sador, Golowkin,  was  urged  to  take  some  Jesuits  in 
his  suite.  The  offer  was  gladly  accepted,  but  it  was 
decided  that  it  should  be  better  for  the  priests  to  go 
by  the  usual  sea  route  than  to  accompany  the  embassy 
overland. 

Father  Grassi  was  considered  to  be  the  most  avail- 
able man  in  the  circumstances,  and  he  was  told  merely 


The  Rallying  681 

that  he  was  to  go  to  a  distant  post,  and  that  his  com- 
panions were  to  be  Father  Korsack,  a  native  of  Russia 
and  a  German  lay-brother  named  Surmer,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  a  sculptor.  On  January  14,  1805,  they 
left  Polotsk,  and  travelling  day  and  night,  arrived  at 
St.  Petersburg  on  January  19.  Only  then  were  they 
informed  that  their  destination  was  Pekin.  On  Feb- 
ruary 2  they  started  on  sleds  for  Sweden.  At  the 
end  of  three  days,  they  were  all  sick  and  exhausted, 
but  kept  bravely  on  till  they  reached  the  frontier  where 
they  found  shelter  in  a  little  inn.  Fortunately  a 
physician  happened  to  be  there  and  he  helped  them 
over  their  ailments,  so  that  in  ten  days  they  were 
able  to  resume  their  journey.  They  then  started  for 
Abo,  the  capital  of  Finland  and  from  there  crossed 
the  frozen  sea  at  top  speed,  till  they  reached  the 
Island  of  Aland.  On  March  20  they  traversed  the 
Gulf  of  Bothnia  in  a  mail  packet,  and  landed  safely 
on  the  shore  of  Sweden.  On  March  22  they  were  in 
Stockholm,  but  the  Abb6  Morrette,  the  superior  of 
the  Swedish  mission  to  whom  they  were  to  present  them- 
selves was  dead.  An  Italian  gentleman,  happily 
named  Fortuna,  who  was  Russian  Consul  at  that 
place,  took  care  of  them  and  presented  them  to  Alopeus, 
the  Russian  minister. 

Alopeus  dissuaded  them  from  going  to  England  as 
they  had  been  directed,  and  suggested  Copenhagen 
as  the  proper  place  to  embark.  Arrived  there,  they 
were  informed  that  there  was  a  ship  out  in  the  harbor, 
waiting  to  sail  for  Canton,  but  that  the  captain  refused 
to  take  any  passengers;  whereupon  they  determined 
to  follow  their  original  instructions,  and  after  a  stormy 
voyage  arrived  at  Gravesend  on  May  22.  From  there 
they  went  to  London  where  they  met  Father  Kohlmann. 

The  same  misfortune  attended  them  at  London  for 
although  Lord  Macartney,  who  had  known  the  Jesuits 


682  The  Jesuits 

in  Pekin,  did  everything  to  secure  them  a  passage  to 
China,  he  failed  utterly.  Then  acting  under  new 
instructions  they  set  sail  for  Lisbon  on  July  29,  but 
were  driven  by  contrary  winds  to  Cork  in  Ireland, 
where  of  course  they  met  with  the  heartiest  welcome 
from  everyone  especially  from  the  bishop.  They 
finally  landed  at  Lisbon  on  September  28;  passing  as 
they  entered  the  harbor,  the  gloomy  fortress  of  St. 
Julian  where  so  many  of  their  brethren  had  been 
imprisoned  by  Pombal.  They  were  befriended  there 
by  an  Irish  merchant  named  Stack,  and  also  by  the 
rector  of  the  Irish  College;  but  were  finally  lodged 
in  an  old  dismantled  monastery  where  they  slept 
on  the  floor.  Then,  in  the  dress  of  secular  priests, 
they  presented  themselves  to  the  Apostolic  nuncio 
who  was  very  friendly  to  the  Society,  and  who  would 
have  been  a  Jesuit  himself  had  it  not  been  for  the 
opposition  of  his  family.  He  warned  them  to  be 
very  cautious  in  what  they  did  and  said,  and  informed 
them  that  there  were  very  few  ships  clearing  for  Macao. 
While  at  Lisbon,  they  devoted  themselves  to  the 
study  of  mathematics  and  astronomy,  and  after  two 
months  their  friend,  the  Irish  merchant,  came  to  tell 
them  that  there  was  a  ship  about  to  sail.  They 
hastened  to  advise  the  nuncio  of  it,  but  were  then 
told  that  they  could  not  go  to  China,  without  the 
Pope's  permission,  for  the  reason  that  the  Society 
had  been  suppressed  in  that  country.  They  also 
learned  from  a  missionary  priest  of  the  Propaganda, 
that  Rome  was  very  much  excited  about  their  proposed 
journey ;  Father  Angiolini  who  was  then  in  Rome,  wrote 
to  the  same  effect.  It  was  then  March  1806.  Not 
knowing  what  to  do,  they  began  a  course  of  astronomy 
at  the  observatory  of  Coimbra,  but  unfortunately,  the 
founder  of  the  observatory,  an  ex-Jesuit,  Jose  Monteiro 
da  Rocha,  was  very  hostile  to  the  Society;  and  even 


The  Rallying  683 

went  so  far  in  his  opposition  that  in  a  public  oration 
before  the  university  he  had  praised  Pombal  extrava- 
gantly for  having  abolished  the  Order. 

The  wanderers  remained  at  Coimbra  for  two  months, 
and  then  returned  to  Lisbon.  On  their  way  to  the 
capital  they  saw  the  unburied  coffin  of  Pombal.  On 
June  4  a  letter  came  from  England  which  revived  their 
hopes,  especially  as  it  was  followed  by  pecuniary 
help  from  the  czar;  but  soon  after  that,  they  received 
news  of  the  Russian  embassy's  failure  to  reach  China, 
and  they  also  heard  that  the  country  of  their  dreams 
was  in  the  wildest  excitement  because  a  missionary 
there  had  sent  a  map  of  the  empire  to  Europe.  The 
imprudent  cartographer  was  imprisoned  and  an  imperial 
edict  announced  that  vengeance  was  to  be  taken  on  all 
Christians  in  the  empire.  Who  the  poor  man  was  we 
do  not  know.  It  could  not  have  been  old  Father 
Poirot.  He  was  merely  a  musician  and  not  a  maker 
of  maps.  On  December  2,  1806,  the  nuncio  at  Lisbon 
was  informed  that  the  Pope  quite  approved  of  the 
project  of  the  Fathers  and  had  urged  his  officials  to 
assist  them  to  carry  it  out.  The  reason  of  this  change 
of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  Holy  Father  is  explained  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  anxious  to  propitiate  Russia. 
Nevertheless,  the  nuncio  advised  them  to  wait  for 
further  developments. 

Another  year  went  by,  during  which  they  continued 
their  studies  and  made  some  conversions.  They  had 
also  the  gratification  of  being  introduced  to  the  Mar- 
chioness of  Tavora,  the  sole  survivor  of  the  illustrious 
house  which  Pombal  had  so  ruthlessly  persecuted. 
Finally  they  were  recalled  to  England,  which  they 
reached  on  November  16  1807,  after  a  month  of 
great  hardship  at  sea.  They  were  welcomed  at 
Liverpool  by  the  American  Jesuit,  Father  Sewall,  who 
was  at  that  time  sheltering  four  other  members  of  the 


684  The  Jesuits 

Society  in  his  house.  When  the  little  community  met 
at  table,  they  represented  seven  different  nationalities 
—  American,  English,  French,  German,  Italian,  Polish 
and  Belgian.  Father  Grassi  remained  in  England, 
chiefly  at  Stonyhurst  until  1810,  and  on  August  27 
of  that  year  set  sail  from  Liverpool  for  Baltimore, 
where  he  arrived  on  October  20.  He  had  thus  passed 
three  years  in  England  where  community  life  had  been 
carried  on  almost  without  interruption  from  the  time 
of  the  old  Society.  For  although  the  Brief  of  Sup- 
pression had  explicitly  forbidden  it,  nevertheless 
Clement's  successor  had  authorized  it  as  early  as 
1778,  and  had  permitted  the  pronouncement  of  the 
religious  vows  in  1803, —  a  privilege  that  was  extended 
to  the  Kingdom  of  Naples  in  1804.  Arriving  in  the 
United  States,  Father  Grassi  found  that  there  had  been 
virtually  no  interruption  of  the  Society's  traditions  in 
this  part  of  the  world.  The  Fathers  had  been  in 
close  communication  with  Russia  as  early  as  1805  and 
were  being  continually  reinforced  by  members  of 
the  Society  in  Europe.  When  the  Bull  of  Re-establish- 
ment was  issued  there  were  nineteen  Jesuits  in  the 
United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE    RESTORATION 

Tragic  death  of  Father  Gruber  —  Pall  of  Napoleon  —  Release  of  the 
Pope  —  The  Society  Re-established  —  Opening  of  Colleges  —  Clori- 
viere  —  Welcome  of  the  Society  in  Spain  —  Repulsed  in  Portugal  — 
Opposed  by  Catholics  in  England  —  Announced  in  America  —  Carroll 
—  Fenwick  —  Neale. 

IN  1805  the  Society  met  with  a  disaster  which  in 
the  circumstances  seemed  almost  irreparable.  During 
the  night  of  March  25-26  its  distinguished  General, 
Father  Gruber,  was  burned  to  death  in  his  residence 
at  St.  Petersburg.  His  friend,  the  Count  de  Maistre, 
who  was  still  ambassador  at  the  Russian  Court,  hurried 
to  the  scene  in  time  to  receive  his  dying  blessing  and 
farewell.  Gruber's  influence  was  so  great  in  Russia 
that  it  was  feared  no  one  could  replace  him.  His 
successor  was  Thaddeus  Brzozowski,  who  was  elected 
on  the  second  of  September.  Splendid  plans,  especially 
in  the  field  of  education  had  been  made  by  Gruber 
and  had  been  warmly  approved  of  by  the  emperor, 
but  they  had  to  be  set  aside  for  more  pressing  needs. 
Napoleon  was  just  then  devastating  Europe,  and  the 
very  existence  of  Russia  as  well  as  of  other  nations  was 
at  stake.  It  is  true  that  the  empire  was  at  peace  with 
France,  but  at  the  rupture  of  the  treaty  of  Amiens, 
Napoleon  complained  of  the  political  measures  of 
the  cabinet  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  ambassadors 
of  both  countries  received  their  papers  of  dismissal. 
The  result  was  that  a  coalition  of  Russia,  England, 
Austria  and  Sweden  was  formed  to  thwart  the  ambitions 
of  Napoleon  who  was  at  that  time  laying  claim  to  the 
whole  Italian  Peninsula.  War  was  declared  in  1805. 

[685] 


686  The  Jesuits 

Austerlitz  compelled  the  empire  to  accept  Napoleon's 
terms,  but  Prussia  and  Russia  continued  the  fight 
until  the  disasters  at  Jena,  Eylau  and  Friedland. 
Then  the  Emperor  of  Russia  and  the  King  of  Prussia 
met  Napoleon  on  a  raft  anchored  out  in  the  Niemen, 
where  on  the  eighth  and  ninth  of  July  peace  was 
agreed  to. 

At  Erfurt,  in  1808  Napoleon  and  Alexander  drew 
up  what  was  known  as  the  "  Continental  System,"  in 
accordance  with  which,  all  English  merchandise  was 
to  be  excluded  from  every  continental  nation.  This 
was  followed  by  a  defensive  alliance  of  Austria  and 
England,  and  as  Austria  was  Russia's  ally,  Alexander 
again  entered  the  fight  against  Napoleon,  but  the 
victory  of  Wagram  and  the  marriage  of  Napoleon 
with  the  Austrian  archduchess,  Maria  Louisa,  changed 
the  aspect  of  affairs  and  the  "  Continental  System  " 
was  restored,  but  in  so  modified  a  form  that  war 
broke  out  again,  and  in  1812  Napoleon  began  his 
Russian  Campaign.  The  battle  of  Smolensk  opened 
the  way  for  him  to  iCtoscow,  but  when  the  conqueror 
arrived  he  found  the  city  in  flames.  He  mistook  it 
for  an  act  of  surrender  and  Alexander  purposely 
detained  him,  discussing  the  terms  of  peace  until 
the  winter  set  in.  Then  the  conqueror  decided  to 
return,  but  it  was  too  late.  On  February  22,  1813, 
Alexander  sent  out  a  call  to  all  the  kings  of  Europe  to 
unite  against  Napoleon  and  they  eagerly  responded. 
He  beat  them  at  Lutzen  and  Bautzen,  and  in  Silesia, 
but  in  spite  of  his  success  he  had  to  continue  his  retreat. 
He  won  again  at  Dresden  and  Leipzig,  but  they  pursued 
him  relentlessly,  until  at  last  the  Rhine  was  reached. 
Peace  was  offered  in  December  1813,  but  when  its 
acceptance  was  delayed,  the  Allies  entered  France,  and 
on  March  3,  1814,  laid  siege  to  Paris.  The  city 
surrendered  on  the  following  day. 


The  Restoration  687 

Meantime  Napoleon  had  released  Pius  VII  from 
captivity,  not  voluntarily,  but  as  a  political  measure, 
to  propitiate  the  anger  of  the  Catholics  of  the  world, 
who  were  beginning  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  extent 
of  the  outrage.  Eighteen  months  previously  he  had 
dragged  the  venerable  Pontiff  from  Rome  and  hurried 
him  night  and  day  over  the  Alps,  absolutely  heedless 
of  the  age  and  infirmity  of  his  victim,  until  at  last  the 
Pope  entered  Fontainebleau  a  prisoner.  According  to 
Pacca,  it  was  a  jail  more  than  a  palace.  There  by 
dint  of  threats  and  brutal  treatment  Napoleon  so 
wore  out  the  strength  of  the  aged  man  that  a  Concordat 
was  signed  which  sacrificed  some  of  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  the  Holy  See.  It  was  cancelled,  indeed, 
subsequently,  but  it  almost  drove  the  Pope  insane 
when  he  realized  the  full  import  of  what  he  had  been 
driven  to  concede.  "  I  shall  die  like  Clement  XIV," 
he  exclaimed.  But  his  jailer  was  heartless  and  it 
was  only  after  a  year  and  a  half  of  imprisonment,  and 
when  the  Allies  were  actually  entering  France  as 
conquerors,  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to  send  the 
Pontiff  back  to  Rome.  Had  he  done  it  with  less 
brutality  he  might  even  then,  have  succeeded  in  his 
calculations,  but  only  one  attendant  was  sent  to 
accompany  the  prisoner.  The  cardinals  were  purposely 
dismissed  some  days  later  in  batches,  and  ordered  to 
go  by  different  routes  so  as  to  prevent  any  popular 
demonstration  on  the  way. 

Pacca  overtook  the  Pope  at  Sinigaglia  on  May  12, 
and  on  May  24,  after  a  brief  stay  at  Ancona,  Loreto, 
Macerata,  Tolentino,  Foligno,  Spoleto,  Terni  and 
Nepi,  entered  Rome.  What  happened  at  these  places 
deserves  to  be  recorded,  as  it  shows  that  the  Faith 
was  not  only  not  dead  but  had  grown  more  intense 
because  of  the  outrages  of  which  the  Vicar  of  Christ 
had  been  the  object.  At  Ancona,  for  instance,  Artaud 


688  The  Jesuits 

tell  us,  "he  was  received  with  transports  of  delight. 
The  sailors  in  the  harbor  flocked  around  his  carriage, 
unhitched  the  horses  and  with  silken  ropes  of  yellow 
and  red  drew  it  triumphantly  through  the  city,  while 
the  cannon  thundered  from  the  ramparts,  and  the  bells 
of  every  tower  proclaimed  the  joy  of  the  people.  From 
the  top  of  a  triumphal  arch  the  Pope  gave  his  bene- 
diction to  the  kneeling  multitudes,  and  then  blessed 
the  wide  Adriatic.  From  there  he  went  to  the  palace 
of  the  Picis  for  a  brief  rest.  The  next  day  he  crowned 
the  statue  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  Queen  of  All  Saints, 
and  then  set  out  for  Osimo  escorted  as  far  as  Loreto 
by  a  scarlet-robed  guard  of  honor.  Entering  Rome 
by  the  Porto  del  Popolo,  his  carriage  was  drawn  by 
young  noblemen,  and  he  was  met  by  a  procession  of 
little  orphan  children  chosen  from  the  Protectory  of 
Providence.  They  were  all  clothed  in  white  robes 
and  in  their  hands  they  held  golden  palm  branches 
which  they  waved  above  their  heads,  while  their  young 
voices  filled  the  air  with  jubilant  songs.  When  the 
crowd  became  too  dense,  the  little  ones  knelt  before 
him  to  present  their  emblems  of  peace,  which  he 
affectionately  received,  while  tears  rolled  down  his 
cheeks.  At  last,  the  city  gates  were  reached  and 
he  proceeded  along  the  streets  lined  on  either  side  by 
kneeling  multitudes  who  were  overcome  with  joy 
at  his  return." 

Almost  the  first  official  act  of  the  Pope  was  to 
re-establish  the  Society.  How  that  came  about  may 
be  best  told  in  the  words  of  his  faithful  servant,  Cardinal 
Pacca. 

"  While  we  were  in  prison  together,"  says  the 
illustrious  cardinal,  "  I  had  never  tired  of  adroiHy 
leading  the  conversation  up  to  this  important  matter, 
so  as  to  furnish  His  Holiness  with  useful  information 
if  ever  it  happened  that  he  would  again  ascend  the 


The  Restoration  689 

Chair  of  St.  Peter.  In  those  interviews  he  never 
failed  to  manifest  the  greatest  esteem  and  affection 
for  the  Society.  The  situation  in  which  we  found 
ourselves  was  remarkable,  and  it  shows  the  admirable 
Providence  of  God  with  regard  to  this  celebrated 
Society. 

"  When  Barnabo  Chiaramonte  was  a  young  Bene- 
dictine, he  had  teachers  and  professors  in  theology 
whose  sentiments  were  anti- Jesuit,  and  they  filled  his 
mind  with  theological  views  that  were  most  opposed 
to  those  maintained  by  the  Society.  Everyone  knows 
what  profound  impressions  early  teaching  leaves  in  the 
mind;  and,  as  for  myself,  I  also  had  been  inspired 
from  my  youth  with  sentiments  of  aversion,  hatred 
and,  I  might  say,  a  sort  of  fanaticism  against  the 
illustrious  Society.  It  will  suffice  to  add  that  my 
teachers  put  in  my  hands  and  ordered  me  to  make 
extracts  from  the  famous  '  Lettres  Provinciales,'  first 
in  French  and  then  in  Latin,  with  the  notes  of  Wendrok 
(Nicole)  which  were  still  more  abominable  than  the 
text.  I  read  also  in  perfect  good  faith,  '  La  morale 
pratique  des  Jesuites,'  and  other  works  of  that  kind 
and  accepted  them  as  true. 

!<  Who  then  would  have  believed  that  the  first  act 
of  the  Benedictine  Chiaramonte  who  had  become 
Pope,  immediately  after  emerging  from  the  frightful 
tempest  of  the  Revolution,  and  in  the  face  of  so  many 
sects,  then  raging  against  the  Jesuits,  should  be  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Society  throughout  the  Catholic 
world ;  or  that  I  should  have  prepared  the  way  for  this 
new  triumph;  or,  finally,  that  I  should  have  been 
appointed  by  the  Pope  to  carry  out  those  orders 
which  were  so  acceptable  to  me  and  conferred  on  me 
so  much  honor?  For  both  the  Pope  and  myself, 
this  act  was  a  source  of  supreme  satisfaction.  I  was 
present  in  Rome  on  the  two  memorable  occasions  of 
44 


690  The  Jesuits 

the  Suppression  and  the  Re-establishment  of  the 
Society,  and  I  can  testify  to  the  different  impressions 
they  produced.  Thus,  on  August  17,  1773,  the  day 
of  the  publication  of  the  Brief  '  Dominus  ac  Re- 
demptor,'  one  saw  surprise  and  sorrow  painted  on 
every  face;  whereas  on  August  7,  1814,  the  day  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  Society,  Rome  rang  with  accla- 
mations of  satisfaction  and  approval.  The  people 
followed  the  Pope  from  the  Quirinal  to  the  Gesu,  where 
the  Bull  was  to  be  read,  and  made  the  return  of  the 
Pope  to  his  palace  a  triumphal  procession. 

"  I  have  deemed  it  proper  to  enter  into  these  details, 
in  order  to  profit  by  the  occasion  of  these  '  Memoirs  ' 
to  make  a  solemn  retraction  of  the  imprudent  utterances 
that  I  may  have  made  in  my  youth  against  a  Society 
which  has  merited  so  well  from  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

Some  of  the  cardinals  were  opposed  to  the  Restor- 
ation, out  of  fear  of  the  commotion  it  was  sure  to  excite. 
Even  Consalvi  would  have  preferred  to  see  it  deferred 
for  a  few  months,  but  it  is  a  calumny  to  say  that  he 
was  antagonistic  to  the  Society.  As  early  as  February 
13,  1799,  he  wrote  as  follows  to  Albani,  the  legate  at 
Vienna:  '  You  do  me  a  great,  a  very  great  wrong, 
if  you  ever  doubted  that  I  was  not  convinced  that  the 
Jesuits  should  be  brought  back  again.  I  call  God 
to  witness  that  I  always  thought  so,  although  I  was 
educated  in  colleges  which  were  not  favorable  to  them, 
but  I  did  not  on  that  account  think  ill  of  them.  In 
those  days,  however,  I  did  say  one  thing  of  them,  viz., 
that  although  I  was  fully  persuaded  of  their  impor- 
tance, I  declared  it  to  be  fanatical  to  pretend  that  the 
Church  could  not  stand  without  them,  since  it  had 
existed  for  centuries  before  they  existed,  but  when 
I  saw  the  French  Revolution  and  when  I  got  to  really 
understand  Jansenism,  I  then  thought  and  think  now 


The  Restoration  691 

that  without  the  Jesuits  the  Church  is  in  very  bad 
straits.  If  it  depended  on  me,  I  would  restore  the 
Society  to-morrow.  I  have  frequently  told  that  to 
the  Pope,  who  has  always  desired  their  restoration, 
but  fear  of  the  governments  that  were  opposed  to 
it  made  him  put  it  off,  though  he  always  cherished 
the  hope  that  he  could  bring  it  about.  He  would  do 
it  if  he  lived;  and  if  he  were  unable  he  would  advise 
his  successor  to  do  it  as  quickly  as  possible.  The 
rulers  of  the  nations  will  find  out  that  the  Jesuits  will 
make  their  thrones  secure  by  bringing  back  religion." 

Of  course,  the  thought  of  restoring  the  Society  did 
not  originate  with  Pius  VII  and  Pacca.  Pius  VI  had 
repeatedly  declared  that  he  would  have  brought  it 
about  had  it  been  at  all  feasible.  Even  after  the 
return  of  Pius  VII  to  Rome,  some  of  the  most  devoted 
friends  of  the  Jesuits,  as  we  have  seen,  thought  that, 
the  difficulties  were  insuperable;  but  the  Pope  judged 
otherwise,  and  hence  the  affection  with  which  the 
Society  will  ever  regard  him.  Indeed,  he  had  already 
gone  far  in  preparing  the  way  for  it.  He  had  approved 
of  the  Society  in  Russia,  England,  America  and  Italy. 
He  had  permitted  Father  Fonteyne  to  establish  com- 
munities in  the  Netherlands;  Father  Cloriviere  was 
doing  the  same  thing  in  France  with  his  approval  so 
that  everyone  was  expecting  the  complete  restoration 
to  take  place  at  any  moment.  The  Father  provincial 
of  Italy  had  announced  that  the  Bull  would  be  issued 
before  Easter  Sunday  1814,  although  some  of  his 
brethren  laughed  at  him  and  thought  he  was  losing 
his  mind.  This  did  not  disturb  him,  however,  and  in 
June,  1814  he  knelt  before  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  and 
in  the  name  of  Father  General  Brzozowski  presented 
the  following  petition: 

14  We,  the  Father  General  and  the  Fathers  who,  by 
the  benignity  of  the  Holy  See,  reside  in  Russia  and 


692  The  Jesuits 

in  Sicily,  desiring  to  meet  the  wishes  of  certain  princes 
who  ask  our  assistance  in  the  education  of  the  youth  of 
their  realms,  humbly  implore  Your  Highness  to  remove 
the  difficulty  created  by  the  Brief  of  Clement  XIV  and 
to  restore  the  Society  to  its  former  state  in  accordance 
with  the  last  confirmation  of  it  by  Clement  XIII,  so 
that  in  whatever  country  we  may  be  asked  for  we  may 
give  to  the  princes  above  referred  to  whatever  help 
the  needs  of  their  several  countries  may  demand." 

On  June  17,  Pius  VII  let  it  be  known  that  he  was 
more  than  eager  to  satisfy  the  wish  of  the  petitioners; 
and  a  few  days  afterwards,  when  Cardinal  Pacca  said 
to  him,  "  Holy  Father,  do  you  not  think  we  ought  to 
do  what  we  so  often  spoke  of  ?  "  he  replied,  "  Yes; 
we  can  re-establish  the  Society  of  Jesus  on  the  next 
feast  of  Saint  Ignatius."  Even  Pacca  was  taken 
aback  by  the  early  date  that  was  fixed  upon,  for  there 
was  not  a  month  and  a  half  to  prepare  for  it.  The 
outside  world  was  even  still  more  surprised,  and  the 
enemies  of  the  Society  strove  to  belittle  the  Pontifical 
act  by  starting  the  report  that  it  was  not  the  old  Society 
that  was  going  to  be  brought  back  to  life;  only  a  new 
congregation  was  to  be  approved.  That  idea  took 
possession  of  the  public  mind  to  such  an  extent  that 
Father  de  Zuniga,  the  provincial  of  Sicily,  brought  it 
to  the  attention  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  "  On  the 
contrary,"  said  Pius,  "it  is  the  same  Society  which 
existed  for  two  hundred  years,  although  now  circum- 
scribed by  some  restrictions,  because  there  will  be  no 
mention  of  privileges  in  the  Bull,  and  there  are  other 
things  which  will  have  to  be  inserted,  on  account  of 
circumstances  in  France  and  Spain  and  the  needs  of 
certain  bishops." 

The  chief  difficulty  was  in  draughting  the  document. 
The  time  was  very  short  and  some  of  the  cardinals 
were  of  opinion  that  the  courts  of  Europe  should  be 


The  Restoration  693 

consulted  about  it.  But  Pacca  and  the  Pope  both 
swept  aside  that  suggestion.  They  had  had  a  sad 
experience  with  the  courts  of  Europe.  Hence  Cardinal 
Litta,  who  when  ablegate  at  St.  Petersburg  had  asked 
for  the  confirmation  of  the  Society  in  Russia,  was 
chosen  to  draw  up  the  Bull.  He  addressed  himself 
to  the  task  with  delight  and  presented  to  the  Pope  a 
splendid  defense  of  the  Society  which  he  declared 
"  had  been  guilty  of  no  fault ;  "  but  when  he  added  that 
"  the  suppression  had  been  granted  by  Clement  XIV 
unwillingly,"  and  that  "  it  was  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
wicked  devices,  the  atrocious  calumnies,  and  the  impious 
principles  of  false  political  science  and  philosophy 
which,  by  the  destruction  of  the  Order,  foolishly 
imagined  that  the  Church  could  be  destroyed,"  the 
language  was  found  to  be  too  strong  and  even  Cardinal 
di  Pietro,  who  was  a  staunch  friend  of  the  Society, 
protested  vehemently  against  it.  Indeed,  di  Pietro 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  certain  changes  should  be 
made  in  the  Institute  before  the  Bull  was  issued. 
Other  members  of  the  Sacred  College  were  of  the  same 
opinion,  but  did  not  express  themselves  so  openly. 
They  were  afraid  to  do  so,  because  the  popular  joy  was 
so  pronounced  at  the  news  of  the  proposed  restoration 
that  anyone  opposing  it  would  run  the  risk  of  being 
classed  as  an  enemy. 

As  a  compromise,  the  Pope  set  aside  the  Bull  drawn 
up  by  Litta  and  also  the  corrections  by  di  Pietro,  and 
entrusted  the  work  to  Pacca.  It  was  his  draught  that 
was  finally  published.  It  makes  no  mention  of  any 
change  or  mutilation  of  the  Institute;  neither  does  it 
name  nor  abrogate  any  privilege;  it  is  not  addressed 
to  any  particular  State,  as  some  wished,  but  to  the 
whole  world ;  it  does  not  reprehend  anyone,  nor  does  it 
subject  to  the  Propaganda  the  foreign  missions  which 
the  Society  might  undertake.  Some  of  the  "  black 


694  The  Jesuits 

cardinals "  such  as  Brancadoro,  Gabrielli,  Litta, 
Mattel  and  even  di  Pietro,  asked  for  greater  praise 
in  it  for  the  Society,  while  others  wanted  it  just  as 
Pacca  had  written  it ;  Mattei  objected  to  the  expression 
"  primitive  rule  of  St.  Ignatius,"  because  the  words 
would  seem  to  imply  that  the  Society  had  adopted 
another  at  some  time  in  its  history  and  he  also  wanted 
the  reason  of  the  restoration  to  be  explicitly  stated, 
namely:  "  the  Pope's  deep  conviction  of  the  Society's 
usefulness  to  the  Church."  His  reason  was  that  many 
had  asked  for  it;  but  only  some  of  his  suggestions 
were  accepted. 

These  details  prevented  the  publication  of  the  Bull 
on  July  31,  hence  August  7,  the  octave  of  the  feast  was 
chosen. 

A  few  extracts  from  it  will  suffice.  Its  title  is  "  The 
Constitution  by  which  the  Society  of  Jesus  is  restored 
in  its  pristine  state  throughout  the  Catholic  World." 
The  preamble  first  refers  to  the  Brief  "  Catholicae 
fidei  "  which  confirmed  the  Society  in  Russia  and  also 
to  the  "  Per  alias  "  which  restored  it  in  the  Two 
Sicilies.  It  then  says:  '''  The  Catholic  world  unani- 
mously demands  the  re-establishment  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus.  Every  day  we  are  receiving  most  urgent 
petitions  from  our  venerable  brothers,  the  archbishops 
and  bishops  of  the  Church,  and  from  other  most  dis- 
tinguished personages  to  that  effect.  The  dispersion 
of  the  very  stones  of  the  sanctuary  in  the  calamitous 
days  which  we  shudder  even  to  recall,  namely  the 
destruction  of  a  religious  order  which  was  the  glory  and 
the  support  of  the  Catholic  Church,  now  makes  it 
imperative  that  we  should  respond  to  the  general  and 
just  desire  for  its  restoration.  In  truth,  we  should 
consider  ourselves  culpable  of  a  grievous  sin  in  the 
sight  of  God,  if,  in  the  great  dangers  to  which  the 
Christian  commonwealth  is  exposed,  we  should  fail  to 


The  Restoration  695 

avail  ourselves  of  the  help  which  the  special  Providence 
of  God  now  puts  at  our  disposal;  if,  seated  as  we  are 
in  the  Barque  of  Peter,  we  should  refuse  the  aid  of  the 
tried  and  vigorous  mariners  who  offer  themselves  to 
face  the  surges  of  the  sea  which  threaten  us  with 
shipwreck  and  death.  Therefore,  we  have  resolved 
to  do  to-day  what  we  have  longed  from  the  first  days 
of  our  Pontificate  to  be  able  to  accomplish,  and,  hence, 
after  having  in  fervent  prayer  implored  the  Divine 
assistance,  and  having  sought  the  advice  and  counsel  of 
a  great  number  of  our  venerable  brothers,  the  cardinals 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  we  have  decreed,  with 
certain  knowledge,  and  in  virtue  of  the  plenitude  of 
our  Apostolic  power,  that  all  the  concessions  and  facul- 
ties accorded  by  us  to  the  Russian  empire  and  the 
Two  Sicilies,  in  particular,  shall  henceforward  be 
extended  in  perpetuity  to  all  other  countries  of  the 
world. 

"  Wherefore,  we  concede  and  accord  to  our  well- 
beloved  son  Thaddeus  Brzozowski,  at  present  the 
General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  to  the  other 
members  of  the  Society  delegated  by  him,  all  proper 
and  necessary  powers  to  receive  and  welcome  freely 
and  lawfully  all  those  who  desire  to  be  admitted  into 
the  Regular  Order  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  that, 
under  the  authority  of  the  General  at  the  time  such 
persons  may  be  received  into  and  assigned  to  one  or 
many  houses,  or  colleges  or  provinces,  as  needs  be, 
wherein  they  shall  follow  the  rule  prescribed  by  St. 
Ignatius  Loyola,  which  was  confirmed  by  the  Consti- 
tutions of  Paul  III.  Over  and  above  this,  we  declare 
them  to  possess  and  we  hereby  concede  to  them  the 
power  of  devoting  themselves  freely  and  lawfully 
to  educate  youth  in  the  principles  of  the  Catholic 
religion;  to  train  them  in  morality;  to  direct  colleges 
and  seminaries;  to  preach  and  to  administer  the  sacra- 


698  The  Jesuits 

row  were  the  Spanish,  Italian  and  Portuguese  Jesuits; 
the  youngest  of  whom  was  sixty  years  of  age,  while 
there  were  others  still  who  had  reached  eighty-six. 
It  is  even  asserted  that  there  was  present  one  old 
Jesuit  who  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  years  old. 
His  name  was  Albert  Montalto  and  he  had  been  in 
the  Society  for  one  hundred  and  eight  years.  He  was 
born  in  1689,  was  admitted  to  the  novitiate  in  1706 
and  hence  was  sixty-four  years  old  at  the  time  of 
the  Suppression. 

This  beautiful  fairy  story  is  vouched  for  by  Cretin- 
eau-Joly  (V,  436),  but  Albers,  in  his  "  Liber  ssecularis," 
tells  us  that  there  is  no  such  name  as  Montalto  or 
Montaud  in  the  Catalogue  of  1773  or  in  Vivier's 
"  Catalogus  Mortuorum  Societatis  Jesu." 

When  the  Pope  had  taken  his  seat  upon  the  throne, 
he  handed  the  Bull  to  Belisario  Cristaldi,  who  in  a 
clear  voice,  amid  the  applause  of  all  in  the  chapel, 
read  the  consoling  words  which  the  Jesuits  listened 
to  with  tears  and  sobs.  Then  one  by  one  some 
hobbling  up  with  the  help  of  their  canes,  others  lean- 
ing on  the  arms  of  the  distinguished  men  present, 
knelt  at  the  feet  of  the  Pontiff,  who  spoke  to  them  all 
with  the  deepest  and  tenderest  affection.  For  them 
it  was  the  happiest  day  of  their  lives  and  the  old  men 
among  them  could  now  sing  their  "  Nunc  dimittis." 

Pacca  then  handed  to  Panizzoni  a  paper  appointing 
him  superior  of  the  Roman  house,  until  the  nomina- 
tion arrived  from  Father  General.  The  professed 
house,  the  novitiate  of  Sant'  Andrea  and  other  properties 
were  also  made  over  to  the  Society  with  a  monthly 
payment  of  five  hundred  scudi. 

On  entering  the  Gesu,  the  Fathers  found  the  house 
almost  in  the  same  condition  as  when  Father  Ricci 
and  his  assistants  left  it  in  1773,  to  go  to  the  dungeons 
of  Sant'  Angelo.  It  was  occupied  by  a  community 


The  Restoration  699 

of  priests,  most  of  them  former  Jesuits,  who  had  con- 
tinued to  serve  the  adjoining  church,  which,  though 
despoiled  of  most  of  its  treasures,  still  possessed  the  re- 
mains of  St.  Ignatius.  Two  years  later,  the  novitiate  of 
Sant*  Andrea  was  so  crowded  that  a  second  one  had 
to  be  opened  at  Reggio.  Among  the  novices  at  that 
place  was  Charles  Emanuel,  King  of  Sardinia,  who  had 
resigned  his  crown  to  enter  the  Society.  He  died  there 
in  1819.  In  1815  the  Jesuits  had  colleges  in  Orvieto, 
Viterbo,  Tivoli,  Urbino,  Ferentino,  and  Galloro, 
Modena,  Forli,  Genoa,  Turin,  Novarra,  and  a  little 
later,  Nice.  In  Parma  and  Naples,  they  had  been 
at  work  prior  to  1814. 

Just  eight  days  before  these  happenings  in  Rome, 
an  aged  Jesuit  in  Paris  saw  assembled  around  him 
ten  distinguished  men  whom  he  had  admitted  to  the 
Society.  It  was  July  31,  the  feast  of  St.  Ignatius, 
and  the  place  of  the  meeting  was  full  of  tragic  memories. 
It  was  the  chapel  of  the  Abbaye  des  Cannes,  where, 
in  the  general  massacre  of  priests  which  took  place 
there  in  1792,  twelve  Jesuits  had  been  murdered.  In 
the  old  man's  mind  there  were  still  other  memories. 
Fifty-two  years  before,  he  and  his  religious  brethren 
had  been  driven  like  criminals  from  their  native  land. 
Forty  years  had  passed  since  the  whole  Society  had 
been  suppressed.  He  had  witnessed  all  the  horrors 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  now  as  he  was  nearing 
eternity  —  he  was  then  eighty-five  —  he  saw  at  his 
feet  a  group  of  men  some  of  whom  had  already  gained 
distinction  in  the  world,  but  who  at  that  moment, 
had  only  one  ambition,  that  of  being  admitted  into 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  which  they  hoped  would  be  one 
day  re-established.  They  never  dreamed  that, seven 
days  after  they  had  thus  met  at  the  Abbaye  to  cele- 
brate the  feast  of  St.  Ignatius,  Pius  VII  who  had 
returned  from  his  captivity  in  France  would,  by  the 


698  The  Jesuits 

row  were  the  Spanish,  Italian  and  Portuguese  Jesuits; 
the  youngest  of  whom  was  sixty  years  of  age,  while 
there  were  others  still  who  had  reached  eighty-six. 
It  is  even  asserted  that  there  was  present  one  old 
Jesuit  who  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  years  old. 
His  name  was  Albert  Montalto  and  he  had  been  in 
the  Society  for  one  hundred  and  eight  years.  He  was 
born  in  1689,  was  admitted  to  the  novitiate  in  1706 
and  hence  was  sixty-four  years  old  at  the  time  of 
the  Suppression. 

This  beautiful  fairy  story  is  vouched  for  by  Cretin- 
eau-Joly  (V,  436),  but  Albers,  in  his  "  Liber  saecularis," 
tells  us  that  there  is  no  such  name  as  Montalto  or 
Montaud  in  the  Catalogue  of  1773  or  in  Vivier's 
"  Catalogus  Mortuorum  Societatis  Jesu." 

When  the  Pope  had  taken  his  seat  upon  the  throne, 
he  handed  the  Bull  to  Belisario  Cristaldi,  who  in  a 
clear  voice,  amid  the  applause  of  all  in  the  chapel, 
read  the  consoling  words  which  the  Jesuits  listened 
to  with  tears  and  sobs.  Then  one  by  one  some 
hobbling  up  with  the  help  of  their  canes,  others  lean- 
ing on  the  arms  of  the  distinguished  men  present, 
knelt  at  the  feet  of  the  Pontiff,  who  spoke  to  them  all 
with  the  deepest  and  tenderest  affection.  For  them 
it  was  the  happiest  day  of  their  lives  and  the  old  men 
among  them  could  now  sing  their  "  Nunc  dimittis." 

Pacca  then  handed  to  Panizzoni  a  paper  appointing 
him  superior  of  the  Roman  house,  until  the  nomina- 
tion arrived  from  Father  General.  The  professed 
house,  the  novitiate  of  Sant'  Andrea  and  other  properties 
were  also  made  over  to  the  Society  with  a  monthly 
payment  of  five  hundred  scudi. 

On  entering  the  Gesu,  the  Fathers  found  the  house 
almost  in  the  same  condition  as  when  Father  Ricci 
and  his  assistants  left  it  in  1773,  to  go  to  the  dungeons 
of  Sant'  Angelo.  It  was  occupied  by  a  community 


The  Restoration  699 

of  priests,  most  of  them  former  Jesuits,  who  had  con- 
tinued to  serve  the  adjoining  church,  which,  though 
despoiled  of  most  of  its  treasures,  still  possessed  the  re- 
mains of  St.  Ignatius.  Two  years  later,  the  novitiate  of 
Sant'  Andrea  was  so  crowded  that  a  second  one  had 
to  be  opened  at  Reggio.  Among  the  novices  at  that 
place  was  Charles  Emanuel,  King  of  Sardinia,  who  had 
resigned  his  crown  to  enter  the  Society.  He  died  there 
in  1819.  In  1815  the  Jesuits  had  colleges  in  Orvieto, 
Viterbo,  Tivoli,  Urbino,  Ferentino,  and  Galloro, 
Modena,  Forli,  Genoa,  Turin,  Novarra,  and  a  little 
later,  Nice.  In  Parma  and  Naples,  they  had  been 
at  work  prior  to  1814. 

Just  eight  days  before  these  happenings  in  Rome, 
an  aged  Jesuit  in  Paris  saw  assembled  around  him 
ten  distinguished  men  whom  he  had  admitted  to  the 
Society.  It  was  July  31,  the  feast  of  St.  Ignatius, 
and  the  place  of  the  meeting  was  full  of  tragic  memories. 
It  was  the  chapel  of  the  Abbaye  des  Cannes,  where, 
in  the  general  massacre  of  priests  which  took  place 
there  in  1792,  twelve  Jesuits  had  been  murdered.  In 
the  old  man's  mind  there  were  still  other  memories. 
Fifty-two  years  before,  he  and  his  religious  brethren 
had  been  driven  like  criminals  from  their  native  land. 
Forty  years  had  passed  since  the  whole  Society  had 
been  suppressed.  He  had  witnessed  all  the  horrors 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  now  as  he  was  nearing 
eternity  —  he  was  then  eighty-five  —  he  saw  at  his 
feet  a  group  of  men  some  of  whom  had  already  gained 
distinction  in  the  world,  but  who  at  that  moment, 
had  only  one  ambition,  that  of  being  admitted  into 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  which  they  hoped  would  be  one 
day  re-established.  They  never  dreamed  that, seven 
days  after  they  had  thus  met  at  the  Abbaye  to  cele- 
brate the  feast  of  St.  Ignatius,  Pius  VII  who  had 
returned  from  his  captivity  in  France  would,  by  the 


700  The  Jesuits 

Bull  "  Sollicitudo  omnium  ecclesiarum,"  solemnly 
re-establish  the  Society  throughout  the  world. 

The  old  priest  was  Pierre- Joseph  Picot  de  Clori- 
viere.  He  was  born  at  St.  Malo,  June  29,  1735  and 
had  entered  the  Society  on  August  14,  1756.  He  was 
teaching  a  class  at  Compiegne  when  Choiseul  drove 
the  Society  out  of  the  country,  but  though  he  was 
only  a  scholastic,  it  had  no  effect  on  his  vocation.  He 
attached  himself  to  the  English  province,  and  after 
finishing  his  course  of  theology  at  Li£ge  in  Belgium,  was 
professed  of  the  four  vows  about  a  month  after  Clement 
XIV  had  issued  his  Brief  of  Suppression.  The  decree 
had  not  yet  been  promulgated  in  the  Netherlands. 
Instead  of  going  to  England  as  one  would  expect,  he 
returned  to  his  native  country  as  a  secular  priest,  and 
we  find  him  in  charge  of  a  parish  at  Parame  from  1775 
to  1779.  He  was  also  the  director  of  the  diocesan 
College  of  Dinan,  where  he  remained  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Revolution.  Meantime,  he  was  writing  pious 
books  and  founding  two  religious  congregations,  one 
for  priests,  the  other  for  pious  women  in  the  world. 
The  former  went  out  of  existence  in  1825.  The  latter 
still  flourishes. 

Having  refused  to  take  the  constitutional  oath,  he 
was  debarred  from  all  ecclesiastical  functions,  and 
began  to  think  of  offering  himself  to  his  old  friend  and 
classmate  at  Liege,  Bishop  Carroll,  to  work  on  the 
Maryland  missions;  but  one  thing  or  another  pre- 
vented him  from  carrying  out  his  purpose,  though 
on  the  other  hand  it  is  surprising  that  he  could  make 
up  his  mind  to  remain  in  France.  His  brother  had 
been  guillotined  in  1793;  his  niece  met  the  same  fate 
later;  his  sister,  a  Visitation  nun,  was  put  in  prison 
and  escaped  death  only  by  Robespierre's  fall  from 
power;  several  of  his  spiritual  followers  had  perished 
in  the  storm,  but  he  contrived  to  escape  until  1801, 


The  Restoration  701 

when,  owing  to  his  relationship  with  Limoellan,  who 
was  implicated  in  the  conspiracy  to  kill  the  First 
Consul,  he  was  lodged  in  jail.  He  was  then  sixty- 
nine  years  old. 

During  his  seven  years  of  imprisonment,  he  wrote 
voluminous  commentaries  on  the  Bible,  chiefly  the 
Apocalypse.  He  also  devoted  himself  to  the  spiritual 
improvement  of  his  fellow-prisoners,  one  of  whom,  a 
Swiss  Calvinist  named  Christin,  became  a  Catholic. 
As  Christin  had  been  an  attache  of  the  Russian  embassy 
he  posted  off  to  Russia  when  he  was  liberated  in  1805, 
taking  with  him  a  letter  from  Cloriviere  to  the  General 
of  the  Society,  asking  permission  for  the  writer  to 
renew  his  profession  and  to  enter  the  Russian  province. 
Of  course,  both  requests  were  granted.  When  he 
was  finally  discharged  from  custody  in  1809,  Clori- 
viere wrote  again  to  Russia  to  inform  the  General 
that  Bishop  Carroll  wanted  to  have  him  go  out  to 
Maryland  as  master  of  novices.  As  for  himself  though  he 
was  seventy-five  years  of  age,  he  was  quite  ready  to 
accede  to  the  bishop's  request.  The  General's  decision, 
however,  was  that  it  would  be  better  to  remain  in 
France. 

Meantime,  Father  Varin,  the  superior  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Faith,  had  convoked  the  members  of  his  com- 
munity to  consider  how  they  could  carry  out  the  original 
purpose  of  their  organization,  namely:  to  unite  with 
the  Jesuits  of  Russia,  but  no  progress  had  been  made 
up  to  1814.  In  his  perplexity,  he  consulted  Mgr.  della 
Genga  who  was  afterwards  Leo  XII,  and  also  Father 
Clorividre.  But  to  his  dismay,  both  of  them  told  him 
to  leave  the  matter  in  statu  quo.  This  was  all  the 
more  disconcerting,  because  he  had  just  heard  that 
Father  Fonteyne,  who  was  at  Amsterdam,  had  already 
received  several  Fathers  of  the  Faith.  Whereupon 
he  posted  off  to  Holland,  and  was  told  that  both  della 


702  The  Jesuits 

Genga  and  Clorivi£re  were  wrong  in  their  decision. 
To  remove  every  doubt  he  was  advised  to  write 
immediately  to  Russia,  or  better  yet  to  go  there  in 
person.  He  determined  to  do  both.  At  the  beginning 
of  June  1814,  he  returned  to  France  to  tell  his  friends 
the  result  of  his  conference  with  Father  Fonteyne, 
but  during  his  absence  Cloriviere  had  been  commis- 
sioned by  Father  Brzozowski  to  do  in  France  what 
Fonteyne  had  been  doing  in  Holland.  That  settled 
everything,  and  on  July  19,  1814,  Fathers  Varin, 
Boissard,  Roger  and  Jennesseaux  were  admitted 
to  the  novitiate;  and  a  few  days  later,  Dumouchel, 
Bequet,  Ronsin,  Coulon,  Loriquet,  with  a  lay  brother 
followed  their  example.  On  the  3ist,  St.  Ignatius' 
Day,  they  all  met  at  the  Abbaye  to  entreat  the  Founder 
of  the  Society  to  bless  tnis  inauguration  of  the  province 
of  France. 

In  virtue  of  his  appointment  Father  Cloriviere 
found  that  he  had  now  to  take  care  of  seventy  novices, 
most  of  whom  were  former  Fathers  of  the  Faith; 
in  this  rapidly  assembled  throng  it  was  impossible 
to  carry  out  the  whole  scheme  of  a  novitiate  training 
in  all  its  details.  Indeed,  the  only  "  experiment " 
given  to  the  newcomers  was  the  thirty-days  retreat, 
and  that,  the  venerable  old  superior  undertook  him- 
self. Perhaps  it  was  age  that  made  him  talkative, 
perhaps  it  was  over-flowing  joy,  for  he  not  only  carried 
out  the  whole  programme  but  overdid  it,  and  far 
from  explaining  the  points,  he  talked  at  each  medita- 
tion during  what  the  French  call  "  five  quarters  of  an 
hour."  But  grace  supplied  what  was  lost  by  this 
prolixity,  and  the  community  was  on  fire  with  zeal 
when  the  Exercises  were  ended.  How  soon  they 
received  the  news  of  what  happened  on  August  7, 
in  Rome,  we  do  not  know.  But  there  were  no  happier 
men  in  the  world  than  they  when  the  glad  tidings  came; 


The  Restoration  703 

and  they  continued  to  be  so  even  if  Louis  XVIII  did 
not  deign  or  was  afraid  to  pay  any  attention  to  the 
Bull,  and  warned  the  Jesuits  and  their  friends  to  make 
no  demonstration.  The  Society  was  restored  and  that 
made  them  indifferent  to  anything  else. 

In  Spain,  a  formal  decree  dated  May  25,  1825, 
proclaimed  the  re-establishment  of  the  Society,  and 
when  Father  de  Zufiiga  arrived  at  Madrid  to  re-organize 
the  Spanish  province,  he  was  met  at  the  gate  of  the 
city  by  a  long  procession  of  Dominicans,  Franciscans, 
and  the  members  of  other  religious  orders  to  welcome 
him.  Subsequently,  as  many  as  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  former  Jesuits  returned  to  their  native  land 
from  the  various  countries  of  Europe  where  they  had 
been  laboring,  and  began  to  reconstruct  their  old 
establishments.  Many  of  these  old  heroes  were  over 
eighty  years  of  age.  Loyola,  Onate  and  Manresa 
greeted  them  with  delight,  and  forty-six  cities  sent 
petitions  for  colleges.  Meanwhile,  novitiates  were 
established  at  Loyola,  Manresa  and  Seville. 

Portugal  not  only  did  not  admit  them,  but  issued  a 
furious  decree  against  the  Bull.  Not  till  fifteen 
years  later  did  the  Jesuits  enter  that  country,  and  then 
their  first  work  was  to  inter  the  yet  unburied  remains 
of  their  arch-enemy  Pombal  and  to  admit  four  of 
his  great-grandsons  into  one  of  their  colleges.  Brazil, 
Portugal's  dependency,  imitated  the  bitterness  of 
the  mother  country.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  was 
favorable,  but  the  spirit  fostered  among  the  people  by 
his  predecessor,  Joseph,  was  still  rampant  and  pre- 
vented the  introduction  of  the  Society  into  his  domains, 
But,  on  the  whole,  the  act  of  the  Pope  was  acclaimed 
everywhere  throughout  the  wold.  So  Pacca  wrote  to 
Consalvi. 

Of  course  there  was  an  uproar  in  non-Catholic 
countries.  In  England,  even  some  Catholics  were  in 


704  The  Jesuits 

arms  against  the  Bull.  One  individual,  writing  in 
the  "  Catholic  Directory  "  of  1815,  considered  it  to 
be  "  the  downfall  of  the  Catholic  religion."  A  congress 
in  which  a  number  of  Englishmen  participated  was 
held  a  few  years  later  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  to  protest 
against  the  re-establishment  of  the  Order.  Fortunately 
it  evoked  a  letter  from  the  old  Admiral  Earl  St.  Vincent 
which  runs  as  follows :  "I  have  heard  with  indignation 
that  Sir  J.  C.  Hippisley,  a  member  of  Parliament,  is 
gone  to  the  Congress.  I  therefore  beseech  you  to 
cause  this  letter  to  be  laid  before  his  Holiness  the 
Pope  as  a  record  of  my  opinion  that  we  are  not  only 
obliged  to  that  Order  for  the  most  useful  discoveries 
of  every  description,  but  that  they  are  now  necessary 
for  the  education  of  Catholic  youth  throughout  the 
civilized  world."  With  the  exception  of  John  Milner, 
all  the  vicars  Apostolic  of  England  were  strongly 
opposed  to  the  restitution  of  the  Society  in  that 
country. 

The  United  States  was  at  war  with  England  just 
then,  and  it  happened  that  seventeen  days  before  the 
Bull  was  issued  Father  Gras.si  and  his  fellow- Jesuits 
were  witnessing  from  the  windows  of  Georgetown 
College  the  bombardment  of  Washington  by  the 
British  fleet.  They  saw  the  city  in  flames,  and  fully 
expected  that  the  college  would  be  taken  by  the 
enemy,  but  to  their  great  delight  they  saw  the  forty 
ships  on  the  following  morning  hoist  their  anchors  and, 
one  by  one,  drop  down  the  Potomac.  They  did  not, 
of  course,  know  what  was  going  on  in  Rome,  but  as 
soon  as  the  news  of  the  re-establishment  arrived  in 
America,  Father  Fenwick,  the  future  Bishop  of  Boston, 
who  was  then  working  in  St.  Peter's  Church,  New 
York,  wrote  about  it  to  Father  Grassi,  who  was  Presi- 
dent of  Georgetown.  The  letter  is  dated  December  21, 
1814  and  runs  as  follows: 


The  Restoration  705 

"  Rev.  and  Dear  Father, 

Te    Deum    Laudamus,     Te    Dominum    confitemurl 

The  Society  of  Jesus  is  then  re-established!  That 
long-insulted  Society!  The  Society  which  has  been 
denounced  as  the  corrupter  of  youth,  the  inculcator 
of  unsound,  unchristian  and  lax  morality!  That 
Society  which  has  been  degraded  by  the  Church 
itself,  rejected  by  her  ministers,  outlawed  by  her  kings 
and  insulted  by  her  laity!  Restored  throughout  the 
world  and  restored  by  a  public  Bull  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff!  Hitherto  cooped  up  in  a  small  corner  of 
the  world,  and  not  allowed  to  extend  herself,  lest  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  the  favorites  of  heaven,  should 
inhale  the  poison  of  her  pestiferous  breath,  she  is  now 
called  forth,  as  the  only  plank  left  for  the  salvation  of 
a  shipwrecked  philosophered  world;  the  only  restorer  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline  and  sound  morality;  the  only 
dependence  of  Christianity  for  the  renewal  of  correct 
principles  and  the  diffusion  of  piety!  It  is  then  so. 
What  a  triumph!  How  glorious  to  the  Society!  How 
confounding  to  the  enemies !  Gaudeamus  in  Domino, 
diem  festum  celebrantesl  If  any  man  will  say  after 
that,  that  God  is  not  a  friend  of  the  Society,  I  shall 
pronounce  him  without  hesitation  a  liar. 

"  I  embrace,  dear  Sir,  the  first  leisure  moments  after 
the  receipt  of  your  letter,  to  forward  you  my  congratu- 
lations on  the  great  and  glorious  tidings  you  have 
recently  received  from  Europe  —  tidings  which  should 
exhilarate  the  heart  of  every  true  friend  of  Christianity 
and  of  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel;  tidings  particu- 
larly grateful  to  this  country,  and  especially  to  the 
College  of  which  you  are  rector,  which  will  hereafter 
be  able  to  proceed  secundum  regulam  et  Institutum." 

A  word  about  this  distinguished  American  Jesuit 
may  not  be  out  of  place  here.     He  was  born  in  the 
45 


706  The  Jesuits 

ancestral  manor  of  the  Fen  wicks,  in  old  St.   Mary's 
County,   Maryland,   and  was  a  lineal  descendant   of 
Cuthbert  Fenwick  who  was  distinguished  among  the 
first  Catholic  colonists  by  his  opposition  to   Lewger, 
Calvert's  secretary,   then  assailing  the  rights   of   the 
Church    in    Maryland.     When    Georgetown    College 
opened  its  doors,  Benedict  Fenwick  and  his  brother 
Enoch  were  among  its  first  students.     After  finishing 
the  course,  he  took  upon  himself  what  his  old  admirer, 
the   famous   Father   Stonestreet,    calls    "  the   painful 
but  self -improving  duties  of  the  class  room,"  and  was 
professor  of  Humanities  for  three  years.     Later  he 
began  a  course  of  theology  at  St.   Mary's  Seminary, 
Baltimore,  but  he  left  in  order  to  become  a  Jesuit. 
The   Fenwicks,   both  in   England   and   America   had 
been  always  closely  identified  with  the  Society,  and 
when  the  news  came  that  it  was  about  to  be  resuscitated, 
Benedict   and   Enoch   were   chosen   with   four   other 
applicants  to  be  the  corner  stones  of  the  first  novitiate 
in   the   United   States   of   North   America.     He   was 
ordained  on  June  n,  1808,  in  Trinity  Church,  George- 
town, D.  C.,  by  the  Jesuit  Bishop  Neale,  coadjutor  of 
Archbishop    Carroll,    and    was    immediately    sent    to 
New   York   with   Father   Kohlmann  to  prepare  that 
diocese  for  the  coming  of  its  first  bishop  Dr.  Concanen. 
Kohlmann  himself  had  been  named  for  the  see,  but  the 
Pontiff  had  yielded  to  the  entreaties  of  Father  Roothaan 
not  to  deprive  the  still  helpless  Society  of  such  a 
valuable    workman;    hence,     Father    Richard    Luke 
Concanen,  a  Dominican,  was  appointed  in  his  stead. 
Kohlmann  and  Fenwick  were  welcomed  with  great 
enthusiasm  in  New  York  which  had  suffered  much 
from  the  various  transients  who  had  from  time  to 
time  officiated  there.     Several  distinguished  converts 
were  won  over  to  the  faith,  and  an  attempt  was  made 
to  influence  the  famous  free-thinker,  Tom  Paine,  but 


The  Restoration  707 

the  unfortunate  wretch  died  blaspheming.  It  was 
Kohlmann  and  Fenwick  who  established  the  New  York 
Literary  Institute  on  the  site  of  the  present  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral.  It  was  successful  enough  to 
attract  the  sons  of  the  most  distinguished  families 
of  the  city  and  merited  the  commendation  of  such 
men  as  the  famous  governor  of  New  York,  De  Witt 
Clinton,  and  of  Governor  Thompkins  who  was  sub- 
sequently Vice-President  of  the  United  States.  At  the 
same  time,  they  were  building  old  St.  Patrick's,  which 
was  to  become  the  cathedral  of  the  new  bishop.  Bishop 
Concanen  never  reached  New  York,  and  when  his 
successor  Bishop  Connolly  arrived  in  1814,  Father 
Fenwick  was  his  consolation  and  support  in  the  many 
bitter  trials  that  had  to  be  undergone  in  those  turbulent 
days.  He  was  made  vicar  general  and  when  he  was 
sent  to  Georgetown  to  be  president  of  the  college 
in  1817,  it  was  against  the  strong  protest  and  earnest 
entreaties  of  the  bishop,  who,  it  may  be  said  in  passing, 
regretted  exceedingly  the  closing  of  the  Literary 
Institute, —  a  feeling  shared  by  every  American  Jesuit. 
The  reason  for  so  doing  is  given  by  Hughes  (History  of 
the  Soc.  of  Jesus  in  North  America,  I,  ii,  945). 

While  Fenwick  was  in  Georgetown,  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  was  in  an  uproar  ecclesiastically. 
The  people  were  in  open  schism,  and  Archbishop 
Marechal  of  Baltimore,  in  spite  of  his  antagonism  to 
the  Society  appealed  to  the  superior  of  the  Jesuits  for 
some  one  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos.  Fenwick 
was  sent,  and  such  was  his  tact,  good  judgment  and 
kindness,  that  he  soon  mastered  the  situation  and  the 
diocese  was  at  peace  when  the  new  bishop,  the  dis- 
tinguished John  England,  arrived.  Strange  to  say, 
Bishop  England  had  the  same  prejudice  as  Bishop 
Concanen,  against  the  Society;  a  condition  of  mind 
that  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  it  had  been 


708  The  Jesuits 

suppressed  by  the  highest  authority  in  the  Church, 
and  that  even  educated  men  were  ignorant  of  the  causes 
that  had  brought  about  the  disaster.  But  Fenwick 
soon  disabused  the  bishop.  Indeed,  he  remained  as 
Vicar  General  of  Charleston  until  1822,  and  when 
he  was  recalled  to  Georgetown,  Bishop  England,  at 
first,  absolutely  refused  to  let  him  go. 

In  a  funeral  oration  pronounced  over  Fenwick,  later 
by  Father  Stonestreet  he  said  in  referring  to  the 
Charleston  troubles;  "  Difficulties  had  arisen  between 
the  French  and  Anglo-Irish  portions  of  the  congregation, 
each  insisting  it  should  be  preached  to  in  its  own  tongue ; 
each  restive  at  remaining  in  the  sacred  temple  while 
the  word  of  God  was  announced  in  the  language  of 
the  other.  The  good  Father,  nothing  daunted  by  the 
scene  of  contrariety  before  him,  ascends  the  pulpit, 
opens  his  discourse  in  both  languages,  rapidly  alter- 
nates the  tongues  of  La  Belle  France  and  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  by  his  ardent  'desire  to  unite  the  whole 
community  in  the  bonds  of  charity,  astonishes,  softens, 
wins  and  harmonizes  the  hearts  of  all.  A  lasting 
peace  was  restored  which  still  continues." 

Bishop  Cheverus,  who  was  then  at  Boston,  was  sub- 
sequently called  to  France  to  be  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux 
and  cardinal.  Father  Fenwick,  without  being  con- 
sulted, was  appointed  to  the  vacant  see.  In  fact,  the 
first  news  he  had  of  the  promotion  was  when  the 
Bulls  were  in  his  hands,  so  that  no  means  of  protesting 
was  possible.  He  was  consecrated  on  November  i, 
1825,  and  his  friend  Bishop  England  travelled  all 
the  way  from  Charleston  to  assist  as  one  of  the 
Consecrators.  At  that  time  the  diocese  of  Boston 
was  synonymous  with  New  England,  but  it  had  only 
ten  churches,  two  of  which  were  for  Indians.  Fenwick, 
however,  set  to  work  in  his  usual  heroic  fashion.  He 
was  particularly  fond  of  the  Indians,  and  bravely 


The  Restoration  709 

fought  their  battle  against  the  dishonest  whites. 
As  the  red  men  were  the  descendants  of  the  Abenakis 
to  whom  the  old  Jesuits  had  brought  the  Faith,  there 
was  a  family  feeling  in  his  defense  of  them.  The  same 
sentiment  of  kinship  prompted  him  to  establish  a 
newspaper  which  he  called  "  The  Jesuit."  It  was 
a  defiance  of  the  bigotry  of  New  England,  of  which 
there  were  to  be  many  serious  manifestations.  "  The 
Jesuit  "  was  the  pioneer  of  Catholic  journalism  in  the 
United  States. 

Bishop  Fenwick  was  averse  to  the  crowding  of 
Catholics  in  the  large  cities,  and  to  segregate  them 
he  established  the  exclusively  Catholic  colony  of 
Benedicta,  but  this  scheme  of  a  Paraguay  in  the  woods 
of  Maine  had  only  a  limited  success.  Prompted  by 
the  same  motive  of  love  of  the  Society  he  visited 
the  place  which  Father  Rasle  had  sanctified  with  his 
blood  when  the  fanatical  Puritans  of  Massachusetts 
put  him  to  death  in  1724.  Father  Rasle  was  the 
apostle  of  the  Abenakis  and  had  established  himself 
at  what  is  now  Norridgewock  on  the  Kennebec.  Fen- 
wick  went  there  to  pray.  Although  it  was  in  the 
wilderness,  he  determined  to  make  it  a  notable  place 
for  the  future  Catholics  of  America;  and  over  the 
mouldering  remains  of  Rasle  and  his  brave  Indian 
defenders,  he  erected  a  monument,  a  shaft  of  granite, 
on  which  an  inscription  was  cut  to  record  the  tragedy. 
It  was  too  much  for  the  bigotry  that  then  reigned  in 
those  parts,  and  the  monument  was  thrown  down; 
but  Fenwick  put  it  in  its  place  again;  at  a  later  date 
when,  in  the  course  of  time,  it  had  fallen  out  of  per- 
pendicular, Bishop  Walsh  of  Portland  corrected  the 
defect  and  amid  a  great  throng  of  people  solemnly 
reconsecrated  it. 

While  he  was  Bishop  of  Boston,  Fenwick  made  a 
pious  pilgrimage  to  Quebec;  the  city  from  which 


710  The  Jesuits 

the  Jesuits  of  the  old  Society  had  started  on  their 
perilous  journeys  to  evangelize  the  Indians  of  the 
continent.  He  saw  there  an  immense  building  on 
whose  fagade  were  cut  the  letters  I.  H.  S.  "  What 
is  that?"  he  asked.  "  It  is  the  old  Jesuit  College,  now 
a  soldiers'  barracks,"  was  the  reply.  His  soul  was 
filled  with  indignation  and  he  exclaimed  in  anger, 
"  The  outrage  that  these  men  of  blood  should  occupy 
the  house  sanctified  by  the  martyrs  Jogues,  Brebeuf, 
Lalemant  and  the  others."  The  good  bishop  was 
unaware  that  the  martyrs  had  never  seen  the  building. 
It  was  built  after  they  had  gone  to  claim  their  crowns 
in  heaven. 

During  his  episcopacy  Knownothingism  reigned,  and 
in  one  of  the  outbreaks  the  Ursuline  Convent  in 
Charlestown  was  attacked  at  midnight.  The  sisters 
were  shot  at,  the  house  was  pillaged,  the  chapel  des- 
ecrated and  the  whole  edifice  given  over  to  the  flames. 
The  blackened  ruins  remained  for  fifty  years  to  remind 
the  Commonwealth  of  its  disgrace,  until  finally  the 
remnants  of  the  building,  which  it  had  cost  so  much  to 
erect,  had  to  be  removed  to  escape  taxation.  It  was 
Fenwick  who  founded  Holy  Cross  College,  in  Worcester, 
Massachusetts,  an  establishment  which  is  the  Alma 
Mater  of  most  of  the  subsequent  bishops  of  New 
England.  It  has  also  the  singular  distinction  of  being 
the  only  Catholic  College  exempted  by  law  from 
receiving  any  but  Catholic  students.  Fenwick  is 
buried  there.  He  died  on  August  n,  1846,  after  an 
episcopacy  of  twenty-one  years. 

Strange  to  say  the  Bull  resurrecting  the  Society 
was  not  sent  to  America  until  October  8,  1814,  and 
on  January  5,  1815,  Bishop  Carroll  wrote  to  Father 
Marmaduke  Stone,  in  England,  as  follows:  "Your 
precious  and  grateful  favor  accompanied  by  the  Bull 
of  Restoration  was  received  early  in  December  and 


The  Restoration  711 

diffused  the  greatest  sensation  of  joy  and  thanksgiving, 
not  only  among  the  surviving  and  new  members  of  the 
Society,  but  also  all  good  Christians  who  have  any 
remembrances  of  their  services  or  heard  of  their 
unjust  and  cruel  treatment,  and  have  witnessed  the 
consequences  of  their  suppression.  You  may  conceive 
my  sensations  when  I  read  the  account  of  the  cele- 
bration of  Mass  by  His  Holiness  himself  at  the  superb 
altar  of  St.  Ignatius  at  the  Gesu ;  the  assemblage  of  the 
surviving  Jesuits  in  the  chapel  to  hear  the  proclamation 
of  their  resurrection,  etc." 

On  returning  to  America  after  the  suppression  of 
the  Society  in  Belgium,  Father  Carroll  had  gone  to 
live  at  his  mother's  house  in  Rock  Creek,  Maryland, 
for  he  no  longer  considered  himself  entitled  to  support 
from  the  funds  of  the  Jesuits  who  still  maintained 
their  existence  in  the  colonies.  They  had  never  been 
suppressed,  whereas  he  had  belonged  to  a  community 
in  the  Netherlands  which  had  been  canonically  put  out 
of  existence  by  the  Brief.  He  spent  two  years  in  the 
rough  country  missions  of  Maryland  and  then  went 
with  Benjamin  Franklin,  Samuel  Chase  and  his  cousin 
Charles  Carroll  to  Canada  to  induce  the  Frenchmen 
there  to  make  common  cause  with  the  Americans 
against  Great  Britain.  The  Continental  Congress 
had  especially  requested  him  to  form  a  part  of  the 
embassy.  The  mission  was  a  failure  and  the  Colonies 
had  themselves  to  blame  for  it;  because  two  years 
previously  they  had  issued  an  "  Address  to  the  English 
People "  denouncing  the  government  for  not  only 
attempting  to  establish  an  Anglican  episcopacy  in  the 
English  possessions,  but  for  maintaining  a  papistical 
one  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Clearly  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  the  French  Catholics 
who  had  been  guaranteed  the  free  exercise  of  their 
religion  to  transfer  their  allegiance  to  a  country  which 


712  The  Jesuits 

considered  that  concession  to  be  one  of  the  reasons 
justifying  a  revolution. 

When  the  war  was  over,  Carroll  and  five  other 
Jesuits  met  at  Whitemarsh  to  devise  means  to  keep 
their  property  intact  in  order  to  carry  on  their 
missionary  work.  They  had  no  other  resources  than 
the  produce  of  their  farms,  for  their  personal  support. 
The  faithful  gave  them  nothing.  At  this  conference 
they  decided  to  ask  Rome  to  empower  some  one  of  their 
number  to  confirm,  grant  faculties  and  dispensations, 
bless  oils,  etc.  They  added  that,  for  the  moment, 
a  bishop  was  unnecessary.  The  petition  was  sent  on 
November  6,  1783,  and  on  June  7,  1784,  Carroll  was 
appointed  superior  of  the  missions  in  the  thirteen  states, 
and  was  given  power  to  confirm.  There  were  at  that 
time  about  nineteen  priests  in  the  country  and  fifteen 
thousand  Catholics,  of  whom  three  thousand  were 
negro  slaves.  In  1786  Carroll  took  up  his  residence 
in  Baltimore  and  was  conspicuously  active  in  municipal 
affairs,  establishing  schools,  libraries  and  charities. 
Possibly  it  was  due  to  him  that  Article  6  was  inserted 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  which  declares 
that  "  no  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a 
qualification  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the 
United  States;  "  and  probably  also  the  amendment 
that  "  this  Congress  shall  make  no  laws  respecting  the 
establishment  of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise 
thereof."  Its  actual  sponsor  in  the  Convention  was 
C.  C.  Pinckney  of  South  Carolina. 

Carroll  was  made  Bishop  of  Baltimore  by  Pius  VI 
on  November  6,  1789,  twenty-four  out  of  the  twenty- 
five  priests  in  the  country  voting  for  him.  He  was 
consecrated  on  August  15,  1790,  at  Lul worth  Castle, 
England  by  the  senior  vicar  Apostolic  of  England, 
Bishop  Walmesly.  On  the  election  of  Washington  to 
the  presidency,  he  represented  the  clergy  in  a  con- 


The  Restoration  713 

gratulatory  address  to  which  Washington  answered; 
"  I  hope  your  fellow-countrymen  will  not  forget  the 
patriotic  part  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  Revolution 
and  the  establishment  of  the  government  or  the  impor- 
tant assistance  which  they  received  from  a  nation  in 
which  the  Roman  Catholic  Faith  is  professed." 

He  convoked  the  first  Synod  of  Baltimore  in  1791. 
There  were  twenty-two  priests  of  five  nationalities 
in  attendance.  He  called  the  Sulpicians  to  Balti- 
more in  1791 ;  the  first  priest  he  ordained  was  Stephen 
Badin,  the  beloved  pioneer  of  Kentucky,  and  four 
years  later  the  famous  Russian  prince,  Demetrius 
Gallitzin.  He  also  succeeded  in  having  a  missionary 
for  the  Indians  appointed  by  the  government.  He  had 
intended  to  have  as  his  coadjutor  and  successor  in 
the  see,  Father  Lawrence  Grassel,  who  had  been  a 
novice  in  the  old  Society  and  who  at  Carroll's  urgent 
request,  had  come  out  to  America  as  a  missionary. 
Grassel,  however,  died  before  the  arrival  of  the  Bulls. 
Father  Leonard  Neale,  a  Maryland  Jesuit,  was  then 
chosen  and  was  consecrated  in  1800.  A  year  and 
two  months  after  the  re-establishment  of  the  Society, 
namely  on  December  3,  1815,  Carroll  died.  It  was 
fitting  that  this  son  of  Saint  Ignatius  should  be  called 
to  heaven  on  the  feast  of  the  great  friend  and  companion 
of  Saint  Ignatius,  Saint  Francis  Xavier. 

Apropos  of  this,  a  note  has  been  quoted  by  Father 
Hughes  (op.  cit.,  Doc.,  I,  424)  which  is  often  cited  as 
revealing  a  change  in  Carroll's  attitude  toward  the 
Society  after  he  became  archbishop.  Fr.  Charles 
Neale  had  written  to  him  as  follows,  "It  is  equally 
certain  that  I  have  no  authority  to  give  up  any  right 
that  would  put  the  subject  out  of  the  power  of  his 
superior,  who  must  and  ought  to  be  the  best  judge 
of  what  is  most  beneficial  to  the  universal  or  individual 
good  of  the  members,  of  the  Congregation."  On 


714  The  Jesuits 

the  back  of  the  letter  appear  the  words  "Inadmissible 
Pretensions,"  said  by  Bishop  Marechal  to  have  been 
written  by  Carroll. 

Archbishop  Carroll's  attitude  to  the  Society  is 
clearly  manifested  in  his  letter  of  December  10,  1814, 
addressed  to  Father  Grassi,  which  says:  "  Having 
contributed  to  your  greatest  happiness  on  earth  by 
sending  the  miraculous  bull  of  general  restoration,  even 
before  I  could  nearly  finish  the  reading  of  it,  I  fully 
expect  it  back  this  evening  with  Mr.  Plowden's  letter." 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Carroll  was  heart- 
broken when  the  Society  was  suppressed  and  that  he 
longed  for  death  because  of  the  grief  it  caused  him. 
The  words  "  Inadmissible  Pretensions "  noted  on 
Neale's  letter  referred  to  a  formal  protest  made  by 
Father  Charles  Neale  against  a  synodial  statute  of 
the  bishops  convened  at  Baltimore.  Neale,  indeed, 
desired  to  exercise  the  special  privileges  of  the  Society 
and  to  govern  as  was  done  in  the  old  Society  or  as  in 
Russia,  a  procedure  which  incurred  the  disapproval 
of  the  General.  Grassi  writing  to  Plowden,  in  England, 
says:  "He  (Archbishop  Carroll)  considers  Mr.  Chas. 
Neale  as  a  wrongheaded  man,  and  persons  who  knew 
him  at  Liege  and  Antwerp  are  nearly  of  the  same 
opinion."  In  brief,  Neale's  administration  both  as 
president  of  Georgetown  and  as  superior  of  the  mis- 
sion was  most  disastrous  (cf.  Hughes,  I,  ii,  passim). 

Leonard  Neale,  like  Carroll,  was  an  American. 
He  was  born  near  Port  Tobacco  in  Maryland  in  1746, 
and  with  many  other  young  Marylanders,  was  sent 
to  the  Jesuit  College  of  St.  Omer  in  France.  After 
the  Suppression  he  went  to  England,  where  he  was  en- 
gaged in  parochial  work  for  four  years.  From 
there  he  was  sent  to  Demerara  in  British  Guiana 
and  continued  at  work  in  that  trying  country  from 
1779  to  1783.  His  health  finally  gave  way,  and 


The  Restoration  715 

he  returned  to  Maryland  and  joined  his  Jesuit 
brethren.  He  distinguished  himself  in  the  yellow 
fever  epidemic  in  Philadelphia,  and  remained  in  that 
city,  for  six  years  as  the  vicar  of  Bishop  Carroll. 
In  1797  another  epidemic  of  fever  occurred  and  he  was 
stricken  but  recovered.  In  1798  he  was  sent  to 
Georgetown  College  as  president,  and  in  1800  while 
still  president  he  was  consecrated  coadjutor  of  Arch- 
bishop Carroll.  He  continued  his  scholastic  work 
until  1806,  succeeding  to  the  See  of  Baltimore  in  1815. 
He  was  then  seventy  years  old  and  in  feeble  health. 
He  died  at  Georgetown  on  June  18,  1817.  Bishop 
Marechal  who  had  been  suggested  to  the  Pope  by 
Bishop  Cheverus  of  Boston,  had  already  been  named 
for  the  See. 

Bishop  Marechal  was  a  Sulpician.  He  had  left 
France  at  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution 
and  after  spending  some  years  in  America  as  a  professor 
both  at  Georgetown  and  Baltimore,  returned  to  his  native 
country,  but  was  back  again  in  Maryland  after  a  few 
years.  Neale  wanted  him  to  be  Bishop  of  Philadelphia, 
but  the  offer  was  declined,  and  he  was  made  coadjutor 
of  Baltimore  with  the  right  of  succession.  He  was 
consecrated  on  December  14,  1817,  and  occupied  the 
see  until  1826.  Unfortunately,  the  whole  period 
from  1820  was  marked  by  misunderstandings  with  the 
Society.  In  spite  of  this  controversy,  which  was 
unnecessarily  acrimonious  at  times,  Archbishop  Mare- 
chal was  anxious  to  have  the  Jesuit  visitor  Father 
Peter  Kenny  appointed  Bishop  of  Philadelphia,  (cf. 
Hughes,  op.  cit.,  Documents,  for  details  of  the  con- 
troversies.) 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE   FIRST   CONGREGATION 

Expulsion  from  Russia  —  Petrucci,  Vicar  —  Attempt  to  wreck  the 
Society  —  Saved  by  Consalvi  and  Rozaven. 

THE  superiors-general  who  presided  over  the  Society 
in  Russia  were  Stanislaus  Cerniewicz  (1782-85), 
Gabriel  Lenkiewicz  (1785-98),  Francis  Kareu,  (1799- 
1802),  Gabriel  Gruber,  (1802-05),  and  Thaddeus 
Brzozowski,  (1805-20).  The  first  two  were  only 
vicars,  as  was  Father  Kareu  when  first  elected,  but 
by  the  Brief  "  Catholicag  Fidei  "  he  was  raised  to  the 
rank  of  General  on  March  7,  1801.  His  two  successors 
bore  the  same  title.  Father  Brzozowski  lived  six 
years  after  the  Restoration.  But  those  years  must 
have  been  a  time  of  great  suffering  for  him.  Over 
the  rapidly  expanding  Society,  whose  activities  were 
already  extending  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  he  had 
been  chosen  to  preside  but  he  was  virtually  a  prisoner 
in  Russia.  It  soon  became  evident  that  such  an 
arrangement  was  intolerable  and  not  only  was  there 
an  exasperating  surveillance  of  every  member  of 
the  Order  by  the  government,  but  even  when  Brzo- 
zowski himself  asked  permission  to  go  to  Rome  to 
thank  the  Holy  Father  in  person  for  the  favor  he  had 
conferred  on  the  Society  by  the  Bull  of  Re-establish- 
ment, he  was  flatly  refused.  Hence  it  was  resolved 
that  when  he  died,  a  General  had  to  be  elected  who  would 
reside  in  Rome,  no  matter  what  might  be  the  conse- 
quences in  Russia. 

The  difficulty,  however,  solved  itself.  Though 
officially  the  head  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  Alexander 
cared  little  for  its  doctrines,  its  practises  or  its  tradi- 

[716] 


The  First  Congregation          717 

tions,  and  he  set  about  establishing  a  union  of  all  the 
sects  on  the  basis  of  what  he  considered  to  be  the 
fundamental  truths  of  religion.  He  is  even  credited 
with  the  ambition  of  aiming  at  a  universal  spiritual 
dominion  which  would  eclipse  Napoleon's  dream  of 
world-wide  empire  built  upon  material  power. 
Whether  this  was  the  outcome  of  his  meditations, 
—  for  after  his  fashion,  he  was  a  religious  man, —  or 
was  suggested  to  him  by  the  Baroness  Julia  de  Krudner, 
who  was  creating  a  sensation  at  that  time,  as  a  revivalist, 
cannot  be  ascertained.  There  is  no  doubt,  however, 
that  he  fell  under  her  sway. 

Mme.  de  Krudner  had  given  up  pleasures  and 
wealth  to  bring  back  the  world  to  what  she  called  the 
principles  of  the  primitive  Church.  She  travelled 
through  Germany  and  Switzerland  with  about  forty 
of  her  admirers,  who  kept  incessantly  crying  out: 
"  We  call  only  the  elect  to  follow  us."  She  established 
soup-kitchens  wherever  she  went,  and  her  converts 
knelt  before  her,  as  this  slim  diet  which  they  regarded 
as  a  gift  from  heaven  was  doled  out  to  them.  Natu- 
rally this  attraction  worked  first  on  the  poor,  but  the 
baroness  soon  reached  the  upper  grades  of  society. 
Her  opportunity  presented  itself  at  Vienna,  where 
the  allied  sovereigns  were  in  session  to  determine 
the  political  complexion  of  the  world,  after  they  had 
disposed  of  Napoleon.  They  did  her  the  honor  of 
attending  some  of  her  meetings,  and  Alexander  who 
showed  himself  greatly  interested,  became  the  special 
object  of  her  attention.  She  styled  him:  "The 
White  Angel  of  God,"  while  Napoleon  was  set  down  as 
"  The  Dark  Angel  of  Hell." 

Such  a  serious  writer  as  Cantu  is  of  the  opinion  that 
it  was  the  baroness  who  drew  up  the  scheme  of  the 
Holy  Alliance,  in  which  the  four  monarchs  agreed 
to  love  one  another  as  brothers;  to  govern  their 


718  The  Jesuits 

respective  states  as  different  branches  of  the  great 
family  of  nations,  and  to  have  Jesus  Christ,  the  Omnip- 
otent Word,  as  their  Sovereign  Lord.  But  immediately 
after  making  this  pious  pact  they  began  to  distribute 
among  themselves  the  spoils  of  war.  Prussia  took 
Saxony;  Russia,  Poland;  Austria,  Northern  Italy; 
and  England,  Malta,  Helioland  and  the  Cape.  Thus 
was  virtue  rewarded. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Galitzin,  his  minister  of  worship, 
Alexander  had  begun  a  devout  course  of  Bible  reading 
as  a  means  of  lifting  himself  out  of  the  gloom  into  which 
he  seemed  to  be  plunged  after  the  war.  It  had  appar- 
ently some  beneficial  effect  on  him,  and  he  became  an 
enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  practise  for  all  classes 
of  people.  The  English  Bible  Society  was  to  help 
the  propaganda  and  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of 
Mohilew  and  his  clergy  strongly  supported  the 
imperial  project.  Necessarily  the  Jesuits  had  to 
antagonize  this  wholesale  diffusion  of  corrupt  versions 
of  the  sacred  text,  and  they  endeavored  to  point  out 
the  folly  of  leaving  its  interpretation  to  ignorant  people. 
The  consequence  was  that  they  provoked  the  anger 
not  only  of  the  Bible  Society  and  of  the  emperor, 
but  also  both  of  the  Russian  and  partly  of  the  Catholic 
clergy.  The  troublesome  Siestrzencewicz,  Archbishop 
of  Mohilew,  not  only  strongly  favored  the  project  but 
suggested  to  Galitzin  that  the  attitude  of  the  Jesuits 
furnished  an  excellent  opportunity  to  get  rid  of  them. 
There  was  another  reason  also  why  the  blow  was  sure 
to  fall.  A  Catholic  Polish  woman  named  Narychkine 
it  is  said  had  been  dissociated  from  the  czar  by  a 
refusal  of  absolution  at  Easter  time.  The  confessor  was 
the  Jesuit,  Father  Perkowski,  and,  of  course,  as  all 
his  associates  would  have  acted  in  the  same  way, 
the  whole  Society  came  under  the  ban. 


The  First  Congregation          719 

Zalenski,  in  his  "  Russie  Blanche,"  finds  another 
reason  for  this  loss  of  Alexander's  favor.  He  was 
not  only  not  a  Romanoff  but  had  not  a  drop  of  Russian 
blood  in  his  veins,  except  through  his  father  Paul, 
the  alleged  bastard  son  of  Catherine  before  she 
became  empress.  He  was  aware  that  the  Jesuits 
knew  of  this  family  stain,  though  not  a  word  was 
ever  uttered  about  it.  It  made  him  uncomfortable, 
nevertheless,  and  he  was  quite  willing  to  rid  himself 
of  their  presence. 

As  he  had  officially  proclaimed  that  all  religions 
were  alike,  many  who  had  professed  allegiance  to  the 
Greek  Church  under  political  pressure  became  material- 
ists or  atheists,  and  some  distinguished  women  became 
Catholics.  No  attention  was  paid  to  the  atheists, 
but  these  conversions  to  the  Faith  were  blamed  on 
the  Jesuits,  particularly  on  three  French  fathers, 
among  whom  was  Rozaven.  Count  de  Maistre,  who  was 
in  St.  Petersburg  at  the  time,  declares  emphatically 
that  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  feeling 
against  them,  however,  was  very  intense  and  only 
lacked  an  occasion  to  show  itself.  It  came  when  a 
nephew  of  Galitzin,  announced  that  he  was  going  to 
become  a  Catholic.  This  was  too  much  for  the 
minister  of  worship  to  put  up  with  and  although  the 
lad,  who  was  a  pupil  of  one  of  the  Jesuit  colleges,  had 
let  it  be  known  that  the  Fathers  had  absolutely  noth- 
ing to  do  with  his  project  and  that  his  resolution  was 
only  the  result  of  his  own  investigations,  he  was  not 
believed,  and  a  ukase,  dated  December  25,  1815,  was 
issued,  proclaiming  their  expulsion  from  the  country. 
This  was  seventeen  months  after  the  Re-establishment. 

The  decree  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  "  when 
the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  all  the  other  nations 
of  Europe,  Russia  had  charitably  admitted  them  and 
confided  to  their  care  the  instruction  of  youth.  In 


720  The  Jesuits 

return,  they  had  destroyed  the  peace  of  the  Orthodox 
Church  and  had  turned  from  it  some  of  the  pupils 
of  their  colleges.  Such  an  act,  said  the  document, 
explains  why  they  were  held  in  such  abhorrence  else- 
where. The  ukase  bubbles  over  with  piety,  deploring 
the  "  apostacies "  that  had  taken  place,  and  then 
goes  on  to  state  that:  first,  the  Catholic  Church  in 
Russia  is  hereby  re-established  on  the  plan  which  had 
been  adopted  since  the  time  of  Catherine  II  until 
the  year  1800;  secondly,  the  Jesuits  are  to  withdraw 
immediately  from  St.  Petersburg;  thirdly,  they  are 
forbidden  to  enter  either  of  the  capitals. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  decree  of  banishment 
is  not  stocked  with  calumnies  like  those  issued  by  the 
Catholic  courts  of  Europe.  It  was  based  purely  on 
religious  ground.  Nor  was  the  expulsion  characterized 
by  any  exhibition  of  brutality  as  in  Spain,  Portugal  and 
France ;  for  although  the  police  descended  on  the  houses, 
in  the  dead  of  night,  and  drove  out  the  occupants, 
an  almost  maternal  care  was  taken  against  their 
suffering  in  the  slightest  degree  on  their  way  to  the 
places  of  their  exile.  Of  course,  all  their  papers  and 
books  were  seized  but  perhaps  the  Fathers  were  glad 
of  it;  for  although,  since  Catherine's  time,  they  had 
been  brought  into  closest  contact  with  the  hideous 
skeletons  of  her  court  and  those  of  her  successors,  no 
mention  was  made  of  any  family  scandal  in  the  volu- 
minous correspondence  that  had  been  so  suddenly 
seized  by  the  government.  As  regards  the  charge  of 
proselytism,  there  is  a  letter  from  Father  Brzozowski 
to  Father  de  Cloriviere,  dated  February  20,  1816, 
which  stated  that  not  only  did  none  of  the  Fathers 
ever  attempt  to  influence  their  pupils,  but  that  during 
the  thirteen  years  of  the  existence  of  the  College  of 
St.  Petersburg,  no  Russian  Orthodox  student  had  been 
admitted  to  the  Church.  It  goes  on  to  say  that  for 


The  First  Congregation          721 

a  long  time  the  storm  had  been  foreseen  and  that 
everyone  was  prepared  for  it. 

Before  the  final  blow  came,  Father  Brzozowski 
petitioned  the  emperor  at  least  to  permit  the  Fathers 
to  continue  their  labors  in  the  dangerous  mission  of 
the  Riga  district,  in  the  Caucasus,  and  on  the  banks 
of  the  Volga,  in  all  of  which  places,  their  success  in 
civilizing  and  christianizing  the  population  had  been 
officially  recognized  by  the  emperor.  But  the  request 
was  not  granted,  and  in  1820,  just  as  Father 
Brzozowski  was  dying,  the  Jesuits  were  ordered  out 
of  the  empire,  and  all  their  possessions  were  confiscated. 
The  loss  was  a  grevious  one  in  many  respects,  but  it 
had  its  compensations.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it 
effectually  settled  the  question  of  the  General's  resi- 
dence. Secondly,  as  the  Jesuits  living  in  Russia  were 
almost  of  every  nationality  in  Europe  and  as  many 
of  them  were  conspicuous  for  their  great  ability  in 
many  branches  of  learning,  a  valuable  re-inforcement 
was  thus  available  for  the  hastily  formed  colleges  in 
various  parts  of  the  world.  Thirdly,  the  traditions 
of  the  Society  had  remained  unbroken  in  Russia,  and 
the  example  and  guidance  of  the  venerable  men  who 
were  there  to  the  number  of  358  would  transmit  to  the 
various  provinces  the  true  spirit  of  the  Society.  In  any 
case  Alexander's  successor  would  have  expelled  them, 
for  he  was  a  violent  persecutor  of  the  Church,  and, 
moreover,  Freemasonry  and  infidelity  had  been  making 
sad  havoc  with  what  was  left  of  the  religion  of  the 
nation. 

Brzozowski  when  dying,  had  named  as  Vicar, 
Father  Petrucci,  the  master  of  novices  at  Genoa, 
a  most  unfortunate  choice;  for  Petrucci  was  not  only 
old  and  ill,  but  was  woefully  lacking  in  wordly  wisdom, 
and  proved  to  be  a  pliant  tool  in  the  hands  of  designing 
men.  His  appointment  went  to  show  the  impossibility 
46 


722  The  Jesuits 

of  directing  the  Society  in  pent-up  Russia,  where  the 
General  could  not  be  sufficiently  informed  of  the 
character  of  the  various  members  of  the  Order.  The 
congregation  was  summoned  for  September  14,  1820, 
but  although  there  were  already  in  Rome  on  August  2 
seventeen  out  of  the  twenty-one  delegates,  Cardinal 
della  Genga  wrote  to  Petrucci  to  say  that  the  Pope 
wanted  the  congregation  to  be  delayed,  because  he 
desired  time  for  the  arrival  of  the  Polish  Fathers  who 
represented  a  notable  part  of  the  Society. 

As  no  one  ever  questioned  the  fact  that  the  Polish 
province,  which  alone  had  remained  intact  in  the 
general  wreck,  was  a  notable  part  of  the  Congregation 
and  of  the  Society,  and  as,  moreover,  the  Polish 
delegates  would  have  no  difficulty  in  reaching  Rome 
before  September  14,  everyone  suspected  that  some- 
thing sinister  was  being  attempted.  That  Petrucci 
and  Cardinal  della  Genga  were  in  league  with  each 
other  in  this  matter  was  clear  from  the  fact  that 
Petrucci,  without  consulting  any  one  of  his  colleagues, 
immediately  dispatched  letters  to  all  the  provinces 
announcing  the  prorogation  of  the  congregation, 
protesting  meantime  that  the  office  of  vicar  was  too 
great  for  one  of  his  age  and  infirmities.  It  was  also 
remarked  that  with  the  cardinal  was  a  small  group 
of  malcontents  composed  of  Rizzi,  Pancaldi,  who  was 
only  in  deacon's  orders,  Pietroboni  and  a  certain 
number  of  Roman  ecclesiastics,  some  of  them  prelates 
who,  like  della  Genga,  did  not  of  course  belong  to 
the  Society. 

These  conspirators  kept  the  minds  of  the  waiting 
delegates  in  a  feverish  state  of  excitement  by  giving 
out  that  there  was  a  great  fear,  not  only  in  the  public 
at  large,  but  even  in  the  papal  court,  that  a  Paccanarist 
might  be  elected.  Indeed  there  were  already  three 
of  them  among  the  electors:  Sineo,  Rozaven  and 


The  First  Congregation          723 

Grivel,  and  hence  it  was  desirable  to  delay  the  con- 
gregation until  it  would  be  sure  that  no  others  would 
arrive.  Over  and  above  this,  some  of  those  recently 
admitted  to  the  Society  maintained  that  only  those  who 
belonged  to  the  old  Society  or  had  been  a  long  time 
in  Russia  should  be  accepted  as  delegates.  Doubts 
were  raised  also  as  to  whether  those  who  had  taken 
their  vows  before  the  formal  recognition  of  the  Society 
in  Russia  in  1801,  or  the  recognition  in  Sicily  in  1804, 
were  to  be  considered  as  Jesuits  or  as  secular  priests. 

In  brief,  Rizzi  and  his  associates  had  so  filled  the 
minds  of  outsiders  with  doubts,  that  some  prelates 
and  even  a  cardinal  advised  that  the  questions  should 
be  submitted  to  the  Pope  for  settlement.  Finally,  on 
the  day  originally  fixed  for  the  congregation,  namely, 
September  14,  Cardinal  della  Genga  sent  three  letters 
to  the  Fathers  at  Rome.  In  the  first  he  said  that  the 
Pope  was  convinced  that  the  meeting  of  the  delegates 
should  be  postponed,  and  that  he  had  given  to  the 
Vicar,  Petrucci,  all  the  faculties  of  a  regularly  elected 
General.  The  second  letter  was  directed  to  the 
assistants,  who  were  informed  that  it  was  the  wish 
of  His  Holiness  that  all  the  irregularities  which  della 
Genga  declared  existed  in  the  congregation  should  be 
remedied,  and  to  that  end,  he  had  appointed  a  com- 
mittee composed  of  himself,  Cardinal  GaHffi  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Nanzianzum,  together  with  Petrucci 
and  Rizzi  to  consider  them.  This  committee,  moreover, 
was  to  preside  at  the  election.  The  third  letter 
ordered  that  new  assistants  should  be  added  to  those 
already  in  office,  making  seven  in  all,  a  thing  absolutely 
unheard  of  in  the  Society  until  then. 

Rizzi  and  Petrucci  were  in  high  spirits  when  this 
became  known,  but  not  so  the  other  delegates,  and 
they  determined  to  appeal  directly  to  the  Pope.  Then 
a  doubt  arose  as  to  which  cardinal  was  to  present  the 


724  The  Jesuits 

appeal.  Mattel  and  Litta,  the  staunch  friends  of  the 
Society  were  dead  and  Pacca  leaned  slightly  to  Rizzi's 
views.  There  remained  Consalvi.  To  him  Father 
Rozaven  wrote  the  appeal,  but,  two  of  the  assistants 
and  Petrucci  refused  to  sign  it.  Consalvi  received  the 
petitioners  with  the  greatest  benignity,  promised  to 
present  the  document  to  the  Pope,  and  bade  the 
Fathers  not  to  be  discouraged.  He  explained  the 
situation  to  the  Holy  Father,  who  immediately  approved 
of  the  request,  and  issued  the  following  order: 
"  Having  heard  the  plea,  We  command  that  the 
general  congregation  be  convened  immediately,  and 
that,  as  soon  as  possible,  the  General  be  elected,  all 
things  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding."  "  Every- 
one," wrote  Rozaven,  "  was  delighted,  except  of 
course,  Petrucci,  the  provincial  of  the  Italian  Province, 
Pietroboni,  and  those  who  had  been  misled  by  Rizzi. 

The  congregation  met  on  October  9.  Twenty-four 
professed  Fathers  were  present  and  they  elected  Father 
Aloysius  Fortis  as  General.  Petrucci  protested  the 
legality  of  the  election,  but  when  the  usual  delegation 
presented  itself  to  the  Pope,  they  were  received  most 
cordially  and  he  referred  them  to  Consalvi  for  the  decree 
of  "  sanation,"  if  any  were  needed.  "  He  is  altogether 
devoted  to  you,"  said  the  Pope,  "  and  watches  with 
the  greatest  concern  over  your  interests."  Now  that 
the  congregation  was  regularly  constituted,  the  Fathers 
proceeded  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the  punishment  of 
the  conspirators.  Both  Petrucci  and  Pietroboni  were 
deposed  from  their  respective  offices  as  Vicar  and 
provincial,  and  other  disturbers  were  expelled  from  the 
Society; — the  Pope  highly  approving  of  the  action. 
It  was  Cardinal  Consalvi  who  had  averted  the  wreck. 

In  view  of  the  great  cardinal's  attitude  in  this  matter, 
it  is  distressing  to  find  Cretineau-Joly  declaring  that 
Consalvi  acted  as  he  did  because  he  was  a  diplomat, 


The  First  Congregation          725 

a  man  of  the  world  rather  than  an  ecclesiastic.  He 
cared  little  for  the  Jesuits  (il  aimait  peu  les  Jesuites) 
whom  he  regarded  as  adding  a  new  political  embarrass- 
ment to  the  actual  complications  in  Europe,  but  he 
knew  how  to  be  just,  and  refused  to  be  an  accomplice 
in  the  plot  (VI,  i).  This  is  a  calumny.  We  have 
the  Pope's  own  words  about  Consalvi's  concern  for 
the  Society,  and  in  the  "  Memoirs  "  edited  by  Creti- 
neau-Joly  himself  the  exact  opposite  is  asserted.  Thus 
on  page  56,  we  read:  "he  made  the  greatest  number 
of  people  happy  and  in  doing  so  was  happier  than 
they,  because  he  was  thus  making  them  venerate  the 
Church,  his  Mother."  On  page  n,  he  says  that 
whenever  Consalvi  wrote  about  Napoleon  "  he  placed 
himself  in  the  presence  of  God  in  order  to  be  impartial 
in  judging  his  persecutor."  On  page  180:  "He 
lived  without  any  concern  for  wealth;  he  never  asked 
or  received  any  gifts.  He  realized  what  St.  Bernard 
and  Pope  Eugenius  III  said  of  a  Cardinal  Cibo  in  their 
day:  '  In  passing  through  this  world  of  money,  he 
never  knew  what  money  was.  He  was  prodigal  in  his 
benevolence  and  died  virtually  a  poor  man."  These 
are  not  the  traits  of  a  "  man  of  the  world  and  a 
politician." 

As  for  "  his  not  liking  the  Jesuits,"  we  find  in  those 
"  Memoirs,"  which  were  finished  in  1812,  and  con- 
sequently eight  years  before  the  meeting  of  the 
congregation,  the  following  words  (II,  305):  "When 
Pope  Pius  VII  returned  to  Rome  in  1801,  he  received 
a  letter  from  Paul  I,  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  asking 
for  the  re-establishment  of  the  Jesuits  in  his  dominions. 
The  Pope  was  delighted  to  have  the  chance  to  gratify 
the  Czar  and  also  to  perform  a  praiseworthy  (louable) 
action ; —  for  it  was  restoring  to  life  an  Institute  which 
had  deserved  well  of  Christendom  and  whose  fall  had 
hastened  the  ruin  of  the  Church,  of  thrones,  of  public 


726  The  Jesuits 

order,  of  morality,  of  society.  One  can  assert  this 
without  fear  of  being  taxed  with  exaggeration  or 
falsehood  by  honest  and  reasonable  men  and  by  those 
who  are  not  imbued  with  a  false  philosophy  or  party 
spirit." 

He  then  narrates  how  cautious  the  Pope  had  to  be 
before  granting  Paul's  request,  "so  as  not,"  Consalvi 
says,  "  to  arouse  the  antagonism  of  the  enemies  of 
the  Society:  the  philosophers  and  haters  of  religion 
and  of  public  order,  who,  as  they  had  forced  its 
condemnation  from  Clement  XIV,  would  now  employ 
all  the  machinery  of  the  courts  which  had  asked  for 
the  suppression  to  prevent  its  rehabilitation.  The 
Pope  succeeded,  but  a  few  years  afterwards,  when  the 
Emperor  of  Austria  asked  for  the  Jesuits,  his  ministers 
brought  about  the  failure  of  the  project.  They  con- 
sented to  accept  the  Jesuits,  but  in  such  a  fashion  and 
under  such  a  form  that  they  could  no  longer  be  Jesuits. 
The  Pope  would  not  consent  to  such  conditions,  and 
as  the  imperial  court  would  not  accept  them  as  they 
were,  the  matter  was  dropped."  In  other  words, 
Pope  Pius  VII  and  his  great  cardinal  believed  with 
Clement  XIII  that  no  changes  should  be  made  in 
their  Institute.  Sint  ut  sunt  aut  non  sint.  Let  them 
be  themselves  or  not  at  all.  To  assert  that  in  the 
heart  of  the  great  champion  of  the  Faith,  Consalvi, 
there  was  little  love  for  the  Jesuits  is  to  say  what  is 
contrary  to  facts. 

The  new  General,  Father  Aloysius  Fortis,  was  born 
in  1748  and  was  consequently  seventy-two  years  of 
age  when  he  was  elected.  In  spite  of  his  age,  however, 
he  was  in  vigorous  health  and  governed  the  Society 
for  nine  years.  He  had  been  in  the  old  Society  for 
eleven  years  before  the  Suppression.  In  1794  he  was 
associated  in  Parma  with  the  saintly  Pignatelli,  who 
twice  foretold  his  election.  He  had  been  prefect  of 


The  First  Congregation          727 

studies  in  the  scholasticate  at  Naples,  and  when  the 
Society  was  re-established  he  was  named  as  Father 
Brzozowski's  vicar  in  Rome.  In  1819  Pius  VII 
appointed-  him  Examinator  Episcoporum.  Hence  his 
election  was  naturally  gratifying  to  the  Pope,  and  he 
gave  evidence  of  ft  by  the  joy  that  suffused  his  counte- 
nance when  the  formal  announcement  of  the  result 
was  made  to  him.  The  eagerness  with  which  he  affixed 
his  signature  to  the  official  document  also  testified  to 
his  satisfaction.  In  the  Professed  House,  the  Fathers 
acclaimed  the  choice  with  enthusiasm,  as  did  the 
throngs  of  people  who  had  immediately  flocked  to 
the  Gesu  to  hear  the  announcement.  They  have  chosen 
a  saint  was  the  universal  cry.  The  Emperor  of  Austria, 
Francis  I,  Frederick,  the  Prince  of  Hesse,  and  Duke 
Antony,  who  was  soon  to  be  King  of  Saxony,  all 
expressed  their  pleasure  at  the  promotion  of  Father 
Fortis. 

The  letter  written  by  Antony  is  worth  quoting. 
"  I  have  read  with  the  greatest  joy,  in  the  public  press," 
he  said,  "  of  the  election  of  a  man  of  whom  it  may  well 
be  said  he  is  Fortis  by  name  and  fortis  by  nature. 
I  am  aware  that  his  humility  would  prompt  him  to 
differ  with  me,  but  I  hoped  that  such  would  be  the 
choice,  and  now  my  desire  has  been  fulfilled.  God 
who  directed  this  election  will  give  you  that  strength 
which  you  think  you  lack  to  fulfill  the  duties  of  your 
office.  Now  more  than  ever  I  commend  myself  to 
the  fervent  prayers  of  yourself  and  your  associates. 
I  have  a  claim  on  them,  for  ever  since  my  earliest 
youth,  I  have  been  most  devoted  to  the  Society,  to 
which  I  owe  my  religious  training." 

In  the  congregation,  Father  Fortis  proposed  a 
resolution  or  a  decree,  as  it  is  called,  which  is  of 
supreme  importance,  and  which  was,  it  is  needless  to 
say,  unanimously  adopted.  It  runs  as  follows: 


728  The  Jesuits 

"  Although  there  is  .no  doubt  that  both  the  Consti- 
tutions given  by  Our  Holy  Founder  and  whatever  in 
the  course  of  time  the  Fathers  have  judged  to  add  to 
them  have  recovered  their  force  at  the  very  outset 
of  the  restored  Society,  as  it  was  the  manifest  wish  of 
our  Holy  Father,  Pius  VII,  that  the  Society  re-estab- 
lished by  him  should  be  governed  by  the  same  laws 
as  before  the  Suppression,  nevertheless,  to  remove 
all  anxiety  on  that  score,  and  to  put  an  end  to  the 
obstinacy  of  certain  disturbers  of  the  peace,  this 
congregation  not  only  confirms,  but  as  far  as  necessary 
decrees  anew,  in  conformity  with  the  power  vested 
in  the  General  and  the  congregations  by  Paul  III, 
and  reaffirms  that  not  only  the  Constitutions  with  the 
declarations  and  the  decrees  of  the  general  congrega- 
tions, but  the  Common  Rules  and  those  of  the  several 
offices,  the  Ratio  Studiorum,  the  ordinations,  the 
formulas  and  whatsoever  belongs  to  the  legislation 
of  Our  Society  are  intact,  and  it  wishes  all  and 
each  of  the  aforesaid  to  have  the  same  binding  force  on 
those  who  live  in  the  Society  that  they  had  before 
Clement  XIV's  Bull  of  Suppression." 

Although  Fortis  was  gentle  and  humble  he  admitted 
no  relaxation,  especially  in  the  matter  of  poverty, 
and  those  who  were  unwilling  to  put  up  with  the  re- 
quirements, he  allowed  to  leave  the  Order.  "We 
want  fruits,"  he  used  to  say,  "  not  roots."  Again, 
in  spite  of  his  new  dignity  and  of  his  great  natural 
gifts  he  was  always  the  same  simple  Father  Fortis. 
He  was  such  an  ardent  lover  of  poverty  that  he  kept 
his  clothes  till  they  were  threadbare  and  torn, 
and  had  to  be  stolen  out  of  his  room  to  be  replaced 
by  others  more  befitting  his  station.  In  1821  he 
united  into  a  vice-province  the  various  members  of 
the  Society  scattered  through  Belgium,  Holland, 
Switzerland  and  Germany  and  gave  it  a  name  descrip- 


The  First  Congregation          729 

tive  of  its  composition:  "The  Vice-Province  of 
Switzerland  and  the  German  Missions."  In  1823  the 
Province  of  Galicia  was  established.  In  it  were  many 
of  the  old  Fathers  of  Russia,  but  the  number  was  so 
great  that  many  had  to  be  sent  to  Italy,  France  and 
elsewhere.  Sicily,  especially,  was  benefited  in  this 
way.  From  the  province  thus  established  three  others 
sprung  in  a  short  time:  Germany,  Belgium  and 
Holland. 

Father  Fortis  died  on  January  27,  1829.  The  grief 
for  his  loss  was  general  and  none  felt  it  more  keenly 
than  the  King  of  Saxony,  who  wrote  another  affection- 
ate letter  to  express  his  sorrow.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that,  although  the  royal  family  of  Saxony  is  still 
Catholic,  no  one  who  has  been  trained  in  a  Jesuit  School 
is  eligible  there  to  any  ecclesiastical  office.  It  is  a  curious 
condition  in  a  kingdom  which  in  1821  was  ruled  by  a 
sovereign  who  exulted  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Jesuit 
alumnus. 

Chief  among  the  distinguished  Jesuits  in  the  con- 
gregation of  1820  was,  without  doubt,  the  Frenchman, 
John  Rozaven.  He  was  born  at  Quimper  in  Brittany, 
March  9,  1772.  His  uncle  had  belonged  to  the  Society 
when  it  was  suppressed  in  France  in  1760,  and  had 
then  become  a  parish  priest  at  Plogonnec.  While 
there,  he  was  elected,  in  1789,  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution  to  be  a  representative  at  the  Etats  Generaux. 
He  accepted  the  constitutional  oath,  but  soon  retracted. 
He  had  to  atone  for  his  treason  to  the  Church,  how- 
ever, by  being  made  the  victim  of  his  bishop,  who, 
like  him,  had  joined  the  schism  but  had  not  recanted. 
On  account  of  this  ill-feeling,  Rozaven  left  the  country, 
taking  with  him  the  future  Jesuit,  his  nephew,  who 
was  living  with  him  at  that  time.  They  both  disap- 
peared on  the  night  of  June  20,  1792,  and  on  the  24th 
arrived  at  the  Island  of  Jersey.  From  there  they 


730  The  Jesuits 

went  to  London  and  after  a  few  months  made  their 
way  to  the  Duchy  of  Cleves. 

Hearing  that  there  was  a  French  ecclesiastical 
seminary  at  Brussels,  young  Rozaven  entered  it,  was 
ordained  sub-deacon,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  after 
six  months,  because  of  the  arrival  of  the  French  troops. 
He  and  his  uncle  then  took  up  their  abode  in  Pader- 
born  and  lodged  in  an  old  Jesuit  establishment  where 
they  lived  for  four  years,  at  which  time  the  young  man 
was  ordained  priest  and  then  left  his  uncle  in  order 
to  join  the  Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  under  Father 
Varin.  When  informed  of  the  existence  of  the  Jesuits 
in  Russia,  John  applied  for  admission  and  was  received 
on  March  28,  1804.  He  was  subsequently  made 
prefect  of  studies  and  professor  of  philosophy  in  the 
College  of  Nobles  at  St.  Petersburg.  In  the  course 
of  his  ministerial  work,  he  brought  to  the  Faith  the 
Princess  Elizabeth  Galitzin,  well-known  as  one  of 
the  first  of  the  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  The 
famous  Madame  Swetchine  was  another  of  his  con- 
verts. He  was  the  professor  of  the  young  Galitzin 
who  had  created  such  an  uproar  in  St.  Petersburg  by 
his  supposed  part  in  the  conversion. 

At  the  death  of  Father  General  Brzozowski, 
Rozaven  was  sent  as  a  delegate  to  the  congregation 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  his  wisdom  and  courage 
that  saved  the  Society  from  shipwreck  on  that  occasion. 
He  was  elected  assistant  to  the  General,  and,  with  the 
exception  of  one  short  visit  to  France,  remained  for 
the  rest  of  his  life  in  Rome.  He  was  too  valuable  an 
aid  for  the  General  to  be  allowed  even  to  be  the  official 
visitor  to  France  although  everyone  there  was  clamor- 
ing for  him.  It  was  he  who  demolished  the  philo- 
sophical system  of  de  Lamennais,  and  at  the  same  time 
restrained  the  hotheads  of  the  French  provinces  from 
accepting  and  teaching  the  new  doctrine,  His 


The  First  Congregation          731 

"  Examen  of  Certain  Philosophical  Doctrines  "  came 
out  in  1831,  and  although  his  office  of  assistant  gave 
him  plenty  of  occupation,  he  taught  theology,  was  a 
member  of  several  pontifical  congregations,  and  heard 
as  many  as  20,000  confessions  a  year.  This  immense 
labor  was  made  possible  by  his  rising  at  half  past  three 
in  the  morning,  and  by  the  clock-like  punctuality 
and  system  with  which  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
various  tasks  of  the  day.  In  the  cholera  epidemic 
of  1837,  despite  his  sixty-five  years  of  age,  he  plunged 
into  the  work  like  the  rest  of  his  brethren  and  heard 
23,000  confessions  during  the  continuance  of  the  plague. 
When  the  Revolution  of  '48  broke  out,  Rozaven 
remained  at  Rome  more  or  less  secluded,  but  at  last, 
when  there  was  danger  of  his  being  taken  to  prison, 
a  friend  of  his,  the  Count  Rampon,  said:  "  You  will 
come  to  my  chateau  and  I  shall  see  that  you  are  not 
molested."  The  protection  was  accepted,  and  a  few 
nights  after,  a  banquet  was  given  at  the  chateau,  to 
which  the  French  ambassador  and  several  conspicuous 
anti- Jesuit  personages  had  been  invited.  When  the 
guests  were  seated  it  was  remarked  that  there  was  an 
empty  place  near  the  Count.  "  Are  you  waiting 
for  someone  else?"  they  asked.  "Yes,"  he  said 
"  I  have  here  a  very  remarkable  old  gentleman  whom 
I  want  to  present  to  you.  He  is  my  friend  and  more 
worthy  of  respect  than  anyone  in  the  whole  world." 
Then  leaving  the  room,  he  led  Father  Rozaven  in  by 
the  hand  and  said  to  his  guests  in  a  loud  voice: 
"  Gentlemen,  I  have  to  "present  my  friend,  Father 
Rozaven,  who  has  deigned  to  accept  my  hospitality. 
He  is  here  under  my  protection  and  I  place  him  under 
yours.  If,  contrary  to  my  expectation,  hatred  pursues 
him  into  my  house,  the  Count  Rampon  will  defend  his 
guest  to  the  last  drop  of  his  blood."  Then  making 
a  step  backward,  he  swung  open  a  door  which  revealed 


732  The  Jesuits 

a  formidable  array  of  muskets,  pistols  and  swords 
which  would  be  available  if  the  contingency  he  referred 
to  arose.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  Father  Rozaven 
was  treated  with  the  most  distinguished  consideration, 
not  only  at  the  banquet  but  subsequently. 

From  there  he  went  to  Naples  but,  later,  joined 
Father  Roothaan  in  France.  When  Pius  IX  returned 
to  Rome,  the  Father  General  and  his  faithful  assistant 
returned  also.  But  Rozaven  had  reached  the  end 
of  his  pilgrimage.  In  1851  he  fell  seriously  ill  and 
breathed  his  last  on  April  2,  at  the  age  of  seventy -nine. 
He  had  put  in  thirty  years  of  incessant  work  since 
the  time  he  had  fought  so  valiantly  in  the  twentieth 
congregation. 

Besides  Rozaven,  there  was  present  at  the  twentieth 
congregation  the  distinguished  English  Jesuit,  Charles 
Plowden.  He  was  born  at  Plowden  Hall,  Shropshire, 
in  1743,  of  a  family  which  had  not  only  steadfastly 
adhered  to  the  Faith  in  all  the  persecutions  that  had 
desolated  England,  but  had  given  several  of  its  sons 
to  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  some  of  its  daughters  as 
nuns  in  religious  orders.  He  entered  the  Society  in 
1759,  and  was  ordained  in  Rome  three  years  before 
the  Suppression.  He  was  in  Belgium  when  the 
Brief  was  read  and  was  kept  in  prison  for  several 
months.  After  teaching  at  Liege,  he  returned  to 
England  where  he  was  appointed  chaplain  at  Lul- 
worth  Castle,  and  as  such  preached  there  at  Bishop 
Carroll's  consecration.  He  had  much  to  do  with 
the  establishment  of  Stonyhurst  and  was  the  first 
master  of  novices  in  England  after  the  re-establish- 
ment, subsequently  he  was  rector  of  Stonyhurst  and 
provincial.  It  was  he  who,  with  Fathers  Mattingly 
and  Sewall,  called  upon  Benjamin  Franklin  in  Paris 
to  persuade  him  to  crush  the  scheme  of  making  the 
Church  of  the  United  States  dependent  upon  the  ecclesi- 


The  First  Congregation          733 

astical  authorities  of  France.  He  died  at  Jougne,  in 
France,  on  his  way  home  from  the  congregation  and 
was  buried  with  military  honors,  because  his  attendant 
had  informed  the  authorities  of  the  little  town  that 
the  dead  man  had  been  called  to  Rome  for  the  election 
of  a  General.  They  mistook  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  General  ",  and  so  buried  the  humble  Jesuit  with  all 
the  pomp  and  ceremony  that  usually  accompany  the 
obsequies  of  a  distinguished  soldier. 

On  August  20,  1823,  Pius  VII,  the  great  friend  of  the 
Society,  died  and  it  was  with  no  little  consternation 
that  the  Jesuits  heard  of  the  election  of  Leo  XII.  He 
was  the  same  Cardinal  della  Genga  who  had  endeavored 
to  control  the  twentieth  congregation  and  was  supposed 
to  have  revealed  his  attitude  towards  the  Society 
years  before,  when  he  advised  Father  Varin  not  to 
attempt  to  form  a  union  between  the  Fathers  of  the 
Faith  and  the  Jesuits  in  White  Russia.  Father 
Rozaven,  especially,  had  reason  for  apprehension,  for 
it  was  he  who  had  thwarted  della  Genga's  plans  at 
the  election  of  Fortis ;  but  the  fear  proved  to  be  ground- 
less, and  Rozaven  hastened  to  assure  his  friends  in 
France  that  in  the  three  years  that  had  intervened 
since  that  eventful  struggle,  God  had  operated  a 
change  in  the  mind  of  della  Genga.  As  Sovereign 
Pontiff  he  became  one  of  the  most  ardent  friends  of  the 
Society. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

A    CENTURY   OF   DISASTER 

Expulsion  from  Holland  —  Trouble  at  Freiburg  —  Expulsion  and 
recall  in  Spain  —  Petits  Seminaires  —  Berryer  —  Montlosier  —  The 
Men's  Sodalities  —  St.  Acheul  mobbed  —  Fourteen  Jesuits  murdered 
in  Madrid  —  Interment  of  Pombal  —  de  Ravignan's  pamphlet  — 
Veuillot  —  Montalembert  —  de  Bonald  —  Archbishop  Affre  —  Miche- 
let,  Quinet  and  Cousin  —  Gioberti  —  Expulsion  from  Austria  —  Kul- 
turkampf  —  Slaughter  of  the  Hostages  in  the  Commune  —  South 
America  and  Mexico  —  Flourishing  Condition  before  Outbreak  of  the 
World  War. 

WHEN  Pius  VII  restored  the  Society  in  1814,  he  said  it 
was  because  "  he  needed  experienced  mariners  in  the 
Barque  of  Peter  which  was  tossed  about  on  the  stormy 
sea  of  the  world. "  The  storm  had  not  abated.  On  the 
contrary  its  violence  had  increased,  and  the  mariners 
who  were  honored  by  the  call  have  never  had  a 
moment's  rest  since  that  eventful  day  when  they  were 
bidden  to  resume  their  work. 

As  early  as  1816  the  King  of  the  Netherlands, 
William  I,  sent  a  band  of  soldiers  to  drive  the  Jesuits 
out  of  his  dominions.  He  began  with  the  novitiate 
of  Destelbergen.  Some  of  the  exiles  went  to  Hanover 
and  others  to  Switzerland.  The  dispersion,  how- 
ever, did  not  check  vocations.  In  1819,  for  instance, 
Peter  Beckx,  who  was  then  a  secular  priest  in  the 
parish  of  Uccle,  never  imagining,  of  course,  that  he 
was  afterwards  to  be  the  General  of  the  Society, 
entered  the  novitiate  at  Hildesheim.  Before  1830 
more  than  fifty  applicants  had  been  received.  The 
figure  is  amazing,  because  it  meant  expatriation, 
paternal  opposition,  and  a  decree  of  perpetual  exclu- 
sion from  any  public  office  in  Holland.  In  spite  of 

[734] 


A  Century  of  Disaster  735 

the  law  of  banishment,  however,  a  few  priests  succeeded 
in  remaining  in  the  country,  exercising  the  functions 
of  their  ministry  secretly. 

In  Russia,  the  Society,  as  mentioned  above,  had 
been  cooped  up  in  a  restricted  part  of  White  Russia 
from  1815;  on  March  13,  1820,  Alexander  II  extended 
the  application  of  the  decree  of  banishment  to  the 
entire  country. 

Then  the  storm  broke  on  the  Society  in  Freiburg, 
the  occasion  being  a  pedagogical  quarrel  with  which 
the  Jesuits  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do.  The  people 
of  the  city  were  discussing  the  relative  merits  of  the 
Pestalozzi  and  Lancaster  systems  for  primary  teaching; 
and  to  restore  peace,  the  town  council,  at  the  bishop's 
request,  closed  all  the  schools.  This  drew  down  the 
public  wrath  on  the  head  of  the  bishop,  but  as  reverence 
for  his  official  position  protected  him  from  open  attack, 
someone  suggested  that  the  Jesuits  were  at  the  back 
of  the  measure.  The  result  was  that,  at  midnight  on 
March  9,  1823,  a  mob  attacked  the  Jesuit  college,  and 
clamored  for  its  destruction.  The  bishop,  however, 
wrote  a  letter  assuming  complete  responsibility  for 
the  measure  and  the  trouble  then  ceased. 

After  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  Talleyrand  suggested  to 
Louis  XVIII  to  recall  the  Jesuits  for  collegiate  work. 
But  before  his  majesty  had  succeeded  in  making  up 
his  mind,  the  proposition  became  known  and  Talley- 
rand was  driven  from  power  in  spite  of  a  proclamation 
which  he  issued,  assuring  the  public  that  he  was 
always  a  foe  of  the  Society.  In  the  lull  that  followed, 
the  Fathers  were  able  to  remain  at  their  work,  but 
four  years  afterwards,  namely  in  1819,  they  were 
expelled  from  Brest  but  continued  to  labor  as  mis- 
sionaries in  the  remote  country  districts. 

On  May  15,  1815,  they  had  been  recalled  to  Spain  by 
Ferdinand  as  a  reparation  for  the  sins  of  his  ancestors 


736  The  Jesuits 

and  their  reception  was  an  occasion  of  public  rejoicing 
—  the  Imperial  College  itself  being  entrusted  to  them. 
They  then  numbered  about  one  hundred,  and  in  the 
space  of  five  years  there  were  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
seven  on  the  catalogue.  They  were  left  at  peace 
for  a  time,  but  in  1820  throngs  gathered  in  the  streets 
around  their  houses,  clamoring  for  their  blood,  and  a 
bill  was  drawn  up  for  their  expulsion.  By  a  notable  — 
or  'was  it  an  intentional? — coincidence  the  docu- 
ment bore  the  date  of  July  31,  the  feast  of  the  Spanish 
saint,  Ignatius  Loyola.  The  feeling  against  them  was 
so  intense  that  three  Fathers,  who  had  been  acclaimed 
all  over  Spain  for  their  devotion  to  the  plague-stricken, 
were  taken  out  of  their  beds,  thrown  into  prison  and 
then  sent  into  exile.  Meantime,  Father  Urigoitia 
was  murdered  by  a  mob,  near  the  famous  cave  of 
St.  Ignatius  at  Manresa.  The  Pope  and  king  pro- 
tested in  vain.  Indeed  the  king  was  besieged  in  his 
palace  and  kept  there  until  everything  the  rioters 
demanded  was  granted;  he  remained  virtually  a 
prisoner  until  the  French  troops  entered  Spain.  In 
1824  the  Jesuits  were  recalled  again,  in  1825  the  pre- 
paratory military  school  was  entrusted  to  their  care, 
as  was  the  College  of  Nobles  at  Madrid  in  1827. 

In  1828  new  troubles  began  for  the  French  Jesuits. 
As  they  had  been  unable  to  have  colleges  of  their  own, 
they  had  accepted  eight  petits  stminaires  which  were 
offered  them  by  the  bishops.  This  was  before  they 
had  become  known  as  Jesuits,  for  to  all  outward 
appearances  they  were  secular  priests.  But,  little  by 
little,  their  establishments  took  on  a  compound  char- 
acter. Boys  who  had  no  clerical  aspirations  whatever 
asked  for  admittance,  so  that  the  management  of 
the  schools  became  extremely  difficult  and,  of  course, 
their  real  character  soon  began  to  be  suspected  by  the 
authorities.  Investigations  were  therefore  ordered  of 


A  Century  of  Disaster  737 

all  the  petits  stminaires  of  the  country,  though  the 
measure  was  aimed  only  at  the  eight  controlled  by 
the  Jesuits.  As  the  interrogatory  was  very  minute, 
it  caused  great  annoyance  to  the  bishops,  who  saw  in 
it  an  attempt  of  the  government  to  control  elementary 
sacerdotal  education  throughout  the  country,  and 
hence  there  was  an  angry  protest  from  the  whole 
hierarchy,  with  the  exception  of  one  prelate  who  had 
been  a  Constitutional  bishop. 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  younger  Berry er 
pronounced  his  masterly  discourse  before  the  "  General 
Council  for  the  Defense  of  the  Catholic  Religion." 
He  established  irrefragably  the  point  of  law  that 
"  a  congregation  which  is  not  authorized  is  not  there- 
fore prohibited  " —  a  principle  accepted  by  all  the 
French  courts  until  recently.  Apart  from  the  ability 
and  eloquence  of  the  plea,  it  was  the  more  remarkable 
because  his  father  had  been  one  of  the  most  noted 
assailants  of  the  Society  in  1826.  The  plea  ended  with 
this  remarkable  utterance:  "  Behold  the  result  of  all 
these  intrigues,  of  all  this  fury,  of  all  these  outrages, 
of  all  this  hate!  Two  ministers  of  State  compel  a 
legitimate  monarchy  to  do  what  even  the  Revolution 
never  dreamed  of  wresting  from  the  throne.  One  of 
these  ministers  is  the  chief  of  the  French  magistracy, 
and  the  guardian  of  the  laws;  the  other  is  a  Catholic 
bishop,  an  official  trustee  of  the  rights  of  his  brethren  in 
the  episcopate.  Both  of  them  are  rivals  in  their  zeal 
to  exterminate  the  priesthood  and  to  complete  the 
bloody  work  of  the  Revolution.  Applaud  it,  sacri- 
legious and  atheistic  race!  Behold  a  priest  who 
betrays  the  sanctuary!  Behold  a  magistrate  who 
betrays  the  courts  of  law  and  justice!" 

Berryer's  chief  opponent  was  the  famous  Count 
de  Montlosier  whose  "  Memoire  "  was  the  sensation  of 
the  hour.  It  consisted  of  '  four  chapters :  i .  The 

47 


738  The  Jesuits 

Sodalities.  2.  The  Jesuits.  3.  The  Ultramontanes. 
4.  The  Clerical  Encroachments.  These  were  described 
as  "  The  Four  Calamities  which  were  going  to  subvert 
the  throne."  The  Sodalities  especially  worried  him, 
for  they  were,  according  to  his  conception  of  them, 
"  apparently  a  pious  assembly  of  angels,  a  senate  of 
sages,  but  in  reality  a  circle  of  intriguing  devils." 
These  sodalities  or  congregations,  as  they  are  called 
in  France,  had  assumed  an  importance  and  effectiveness 
for  good  which  is  perhaps  unequalled  in  the  history  of 
similar  organizations  elsewhere.  Their  founder  was 
Father  Delpuits,  "  whom  it  is  a  pleasure  to  name," 
said  the  eloquent  Lacordaire,  "  for  though  others  may 
have  won  more  applause  for  their  influence  over 
young  men,  no  one  deserved  it  more." 

When  the  Society  was  expelled  from  France  in  1762, 
Delpuits  became  a  secular  priest  and  was  offered  a 
canonry  by  de  Beaumont,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris. 
He  gave  retreats  to  the  clergy  and  laity  and  especially 
to  young  collegians.  During  the  Revolution,  he  was 
put  in  prison  and  then  exiled,  but  he  returned  to 
France  after  the  storm.  There  he  met  young  Father 
Barat,  who  had  just  been  released  from  prison  and 
was  anxious  to  join  the  Jesuits  in  Russia.  Delpuits 
advised  him  to  remain  in  France  where  men  of  his 
stamp  were  sorely  needed  and  hence  Barat  did  not 
enter  the  Society  until  1814. 

In  1 80 1,  following  out  the  old  Jesuit  traditions, 
Delpuits  organized  a  sodality,  beginning  with  four 
young  students  of  law  and  medicine.  Others  soon 
joined  them,  among  them  Laennec  who  subsequently 
became  one  of  the  glories  of  the  medical  profession 
as  the  inventor  of  auscultation.  Then  came  two 
abbes  and  two  brothers  of  the  house  of  Montmorency. 
The  future  mathematician,  Augustin  Cauchy,  and  also 
Simon  Brute  dc  Remur  who,  at  a  later  date,  was  to  be 


A  Century  of  Disaster  739 

one  of  the  first  bishops  of  the  United  States;  Forbin- 
Janson,  so  eminent  in  the  Church  of  France,  was  a 
sodalist,  as  were  the  three  McCarthys,  one  of  whom, 
Nicholas,  became  a  Jesuit,  and  was  regarded  as  the 
Chrysostom  of  France.  The  list  is  a  long  one.  When 
Delpuits  died  in  1812,  his  sodalists  erected  a  modest 
memorial  above  him,  and  inserted  the  S.  J.  after  his 
name.  That  was  two  years  prior  to  the  re-establish- 
ment. A  Sulpician  then  took  up  the  work,  but  in 
1814,  he  turned  it  over  to  Father  de  Cloriviere  who, 
in  turn,  entrusted  it  to  Father  Ronsin.  Its  good 
works  multiplied  in  all  directions,  and  branches  were 
established  throughout  France.  By  the  time  Mont- 
losier  began  his  attacks,  the  register  showed  1,373 
names,  though  Montlosier  assured  the  public  that  they 
were  no  less  than  48,000.  Among  them  were  a  great 
number  of  priests  and  even  bishops,  notably,  Cheverus, 
the  first  Bishop  of  Boston  and  subsequently,  Cardinal 
Archbishop  of  Bordeaux.  The  last  meeting  of  the 
sodality  was  held  on  July  18,  1830.  Paris  was  then 
in  the  Revolution  and  the  sodality  was  suppressed, 
but  rose  again  to  life  later  on. 

While  this  attack  on  the  sodalists  was  going  on,  the 
Jesuits  of  course  were  assailed  on  all  sides.  The  fight 
grew  fiercer  every  day  until  the  "  Journal  des  Debats  " 
was  able  to  say:  "  The  name  Jesuit  is  on  every 
tongue,  but  it  is  there  to  be  cursed;  it  is  repeated 
in  every  newspaper  of  the  land  with  fear  and  alarm; 
it  is  carried  throughout  the  whole  of  France  on  the 
wings  of  the  terror  that  it  inspires."  As  many  as  one 
hundred  books,  big  and  little,  were  counted  in  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale,  all  of  which  had  been  published 
in  the  year  1826  alone.  They  were  the  works  not 
only  of  anonymous  and  money-making  scribes,  but 
of  men  like  Thiers  and  the  poet  Beranger  who  did  not 
think  such  literature  beneath  them.  Casimir  Perier 


740  The  Jesuits 

appeared  in  the  tribune  against  the  Society,  and  the 
ominous  name  .of  Pasquier,  whose  bearer  was  possibly 
a  descendant  of  the  famous  anti- Jesuit  of  the  time  of 
Henry  IV,  is  found  on  the  list  of  the  orators.  Lam- 
ennais  got  into  the  fray,  not  precisely  in  defense  of  the 
Jesuits,  but  to  proclaim  his  ultra  anti-Gallicanism ; 
thus  bringing  that  element  into  the  war.  Added  to 
this  was  the  old  Jansenist  spirit,  which  had  not  yet 
been  purged  out  of  France;  indeed,  Bournichon  dis- 
covers traces  of  it  in  some  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith 
who  had  joined  the  Society. 

Finally  came  the  Revolution  of  1830,  during  which 
the  novitiate  of  Montrouge  was  sacked  and  pillaged. 
Other  houses  of  France  shared  the  same  fate.  On 
July  29  a  mob  of  four  or  five  hundred  men  attacked 
St.  Acheul,  some  of  the  assailants  shouting  for  the 
king,  others  for  the  emperor,  others  again  for  the 
Republic,  but  all  uniting  in:  "  Down  with  the  priests! 
Death  to  the  Jesuits !  "  Father  de  Ravignan  attempted 
to  talk  to  the  mob,  but  his  voice  was  drowned  in  the 
crashing  of  falling  timbers.  The  bell  was  rung  to  call 
for  help,  but  that  only  maddened  the  assailants  the 
more.  De  Ravignan  persisted  in  appealing  to  them, 
but  was  struck  in  the  face  by  a  stone  and  badly 
wounded.  Then  some  one  in  the  crowd  shouted  for 
drink,  and  wine  was  brought  out.  It  calmed  the 
rioters  for  a  while,  but  while  they  were  busy  emptying 
bottles  and  breaking  barrels,  a  troop  of  cavalry  from 
Amiens  swept  down  on  them  and  they  fled.  The 
troopers  however,  came  too  late  to  save  the  house. 
It  was  a  wreck  and  some  of  the  Fathers  were  sent 
to  different  parts  of  the  world  —  Italy,  Switzerland, 
America  or  the  foreign  missions.  But  when  there 
were  no  more  popular  outbreaks,  many  returned  from 
abroad  and  gave  their  services  to  the  French  bishops, 
with  the  result  that  there  never  had  been  a  period 


A  Century  of  Disaster  741 

for  a  long  time  which  had  so  many  pulpit  orators 
and  missionaries  as  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe. 

Pius  VIII  died  on  November  30,  1830,  and  it  was 
a  signal  for  an  uprising  in  Italy.  Thanks  to  Cardinal 
Bernetti,  the  Vicar  of  Rome,  peace  was  maintained 
in  the  City  itself,  but  elsewhere  in  the  Papal  States, 
the  anti-Jesuit  cry  was  raised.  The  colleges  were 
closed  and  all  the  houses  were  searched,  on  the  pretext 
of  looking  for  concealed  weapons.  Meantime 
calumnious  reports  were  industriously  circulated  against 
the  reputations  of  the  Fathers. 

In  the  Spanish  Revolution  of  1820,  twenty-five 
Jesuits  were  murdered.  In  1833  civil  war  broke  out 
between  the  partisans  and  opponents  of  Isabella  and, 
for  no  reason  whatever,  two  Jesuits  were  arrested  and 
thrown  into  prison.  One  of  them  died  after  three 
months'  incarceration.  Meanwhile  threats  were  made 
in  Madrid  to  murder  all  the  religious  in  the  city. 
The  Jesuits  were  to  be  the  special  victims  for  they 
were  accused  of  having  started  the  cholera,  poisoned 
the  wells,  etc.  July  17,  1834,  was  the  day  fixed  for 
the  deed,  and  crowds  gathered  around  the  Imperial 
College  to  see  what  might  happen. 

The  pupils  were  at  dinner.  A  police  officer  entered 
and  dismissed  them  and  then  the  mob  invaded  the 
house.  Inside  the  building,  three  Jesuits  were  killed; 
a  priest,  a  scholastic  and  a  lay-brother.  The  priest 
had  his  skull  crushed  in,  his  teeth  knocked  out  and 
his  body  horribly  mangled.  The  scholastic  was  beaten 
with  clubs;  pierced  through  the  body  with  swords, 
and  when  he  fell  in  his  blood,  his  head  was  cloven 
with  an  axe.  Four  of  the  community  disguised 
themselves  and  attempted  to  escape  but  were  caught 
and  murdered  in  the  street.  Three  more  were  killed 
on  the  roof;  and  two  lay-brothers  who  were  captured 
somewhere  else  were  likewise  butchered.  The  rest 


742  The  Jesuits 

of  the  community  had  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
chapel,  and  were  on  their  knees  before  the  altar,  when 
an  officer  forced  his  way  through  the  crowd  and  called 
for  his  brother  who  was  one  of  the  scholastics,  to  go 
with  him  to  a  place  of  safety.  The  young  Jesuit 
refused  the  offer,  whereupon  the  soldier  replied: 
"  Very  well  I  shall  take  care  of  all  of  you."  He  kept 
his  word  and  fifty-four  Jesuits  followed  him  out  of 
the  chapel  and  were  conducted  to  a  place  of  safety. 
The  house,  however,  was  gutted;  unspeakable  horrors 
were  committed  in  the  chapel;  everything  that  could 
not  be  carried  off  was  broken,  and  in  the  meantime 
a  line  of  soldiers  stood  outside,  not  only  looking  on, 
but  even  taking  sides  with  the  rioters. 

Evidently  the  times  had  passed  when  it  was  necessary 
to  go  out  among  the  savages  to  die  for  the  Faith. 
The  savages  had  come  to  Madrid.  Nor  was  this  a 
conventional  anti- Jesuit  uprising;  for  on  that  hideous 
1 7th  of  July,  1834,  seventy-three  members  of  other 
religious  communities  were  murdered  in  the  dead  of 
night  in  the  capital  of  Catholic  Spain.  Nevertheless 
Father  General  Roothaan  wrote  to  his  Jesuit  sons: 
"  I  am  not  worried  about  our  fourteen  who  have  so 
gloriously  died,  for  '  blessed  are  those  who  die  in  the 
Lord.'  What  causes  me  most  anguish  is  the  danger 
of  those  who  remain ;  most  of  them  still  young,  who  are 
scattered  abroad,  in  surroundings  where  their  vocation 
and  virtue  will  be  exposed  to  many  dangers."  Nothing 
was  done  to  the  murderers,  and  before  another  year  had 
elapsed,  a  decree  was  issued  expelling  the  Jesuits  from 
the  whole  of  Spain ;  but  as  Don  Carlos  was  just  then  in 
the  field  asserting  his  claim  to  the  throne,  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  exiles  from  other  parts  of  Spain,  were  able  to 
remain  at  Loyola  in  the  Pyrenees  until  1840. 

The  Portuguese  had  waited  for  fifteen  years  after 
Pius  VII  had  re-established  the  Society  before  consent- 


A  Century  of  Disaster  743 

ing  to  re-admit  the  Jesuits.  Don  Miguel  issued  a 
decree  to  that  effect  on  July  10,  1829,  and  the  Countess 
Oliviera,  a  niece  of  Pombal,  was  the  first  to  welcome 
them  back  and  to  place  her  boys  in  their  college. 
The  Fathers  were  given  their  former  residence  in  Lisbon 
and,  shortly  afterwards,  the  Bishop  of  Evora  established 
them  in  their  old  college  in  that  city.  In  1832  they 
were  presented  with  their  own  college  at  Coimbra, 
and  on  their  way  thither  they  laid  in  the  temb  the 
still  unburied  remains  of  their  arch-enemy,  Pombal, 
which  had  remained  in  the  morgue  ever  since  March 
5,  1872, —  a  space  of  half  a  century.  It  seemed 
almost  like  a  dream.  Indeed  it  was  little  else,  for 
Dom  Miguel,  who  was  then  on  the  throne,  was  deposed 
by  his  rival,  Dom  Pedro,  soon  after,  and  on  July  20, 
1833  the  Jesuits  of  Lisbon  were  again  expelled.  The 
decree  was  superfluous,  for  in  the  early  Spring,  their 
house  had  been  sacked,  and  on  •  that  occasion  the 
inmates  would  have  been  killed  had  not  a  young 
Englishman,  a  former  student  of  Stonyhurst,  appeared 
on  the  scene.  The  four  that  were  there  he  took 
on  his  yacht  to  England,  the  others  had  already 
departed  for  Genoa. 

Hatred  for  the  Society,  however,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  The  whole  affair  was  purely  political.  Had 
the  Fathers  accepted  Dom  Pedro's  invitation  to  go 
out  among  the  people  and  persuade  them  to  abandon 
the  cause  of  the  deposed  king,  they  would  have  been 
allowed  to  remain.  They  were  expelled  for  not  being 
traitors  to  their  lawful  sovereign.  The  Fathers  of 
Coimbra  contrived  to  remain  another  year,  but  on 
May  26,  1834,  they  were  seized  by  a  squad  of  soldiers 
and  marched  off  to  Lisbon.  Fortunately  the  French 
ambassador,  Baron  de  Mortier,  interceded  for  them, 
otherwise  they  would  have  ended  their  days  in  the 
dungeons  of  San  Sebastian,  to  which  they  had  already 


744  The  Jesuits 

been  sentenced.  They  were  released  on  June  28, 
1834,  and  sent  by  ship  to  Italy  and  from  there,  along 
with  the  dispersed  Spaniards  were  sent  by  Father 
Roothaan  to  France  and  South  America. 

Switzerland,  which  is  the  land  of  liberty  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  will  harbor  the  worst  kind  of  anarchists, 
refused  to  admit  the  Jesuits,  at  least  in  some  parts  of  it. 
There  were  seven  Catholic  Cantons,  Uri,  Schwyz, 
Unterwalden,  Lucerne,  Zug,  Fribourg  and  Valais. 
These  sections  formed  a  coalition  known  as  the  Sunder- 
bund.  A  war  broke  out  between  them  and  the  other 
cantons,  but  the  Sunderbund  was  defeated.  The 
Jesuits  were  then  expelled  from  the  little  town  of 
Sion  where  they  had  an  important  school.  In  1845 
the  people  of  Lucerne  asked  for  a  college,  and  though 
Father  Roothaan  refused,  Pope  Gregory  XVI  insisted 
on  it.  The  expected  happened.  The  Radicals  arose 
in  a  rage  and  with.  10,000  men  laid  siege  to  Lucerne. 
They  were  beaten,  it  is  true,  but  that  did  not  insure 
the  permanency  of  the  college.  In  1847  the  Sunder- 
bund was  again  defeated,  and  in  1848  when  the  general 
European  revolution  broke  out,  the  College  of  Fri- 
bourg was  looted,  and  its  collection  of  Natural  History 
which  was  regarded  as  among  the  best  on  the  Conti- 
nent was  thrown  out  in  the  street. 

The  rumblings  of  the%  storm  began  to  be  heard  in 
France  on  May  i,  the  Feast  of  the  Apostles  Philip 
and  James,  Louis-Philippe's  name-day.  Someone  in 
the  Tuilleries  said  that  the  Jesuits  were  starting  a 
conspiracy  against  the  throne.  Happily  a  distinguished 
woman  heard  the  remark,  and  admitted  that  she  was 
concerned  in  it,  along  with  300  other  conspicuous 
representatives  of  the  best  families  of  France.  It  was 
a  charity  lottery  and  most  of  the  conspirators  had 
received  a  pot  or  basket  of  flowers  for  their  partici- 
pation in  the  plot. 


A  Century  of  Disaster  745 

When  that  myth  was  exploded,  the  "  Journal  des 
Debats  "  attacked  de  Ravignan  for  his  wide  influence 
over  many  important  people  in  Paris,  and  though 
admitting  his  unquestioned  probity,  added  "  What 
matters  his  virtue,  if  he  brings  us  the  pest?"  The 
word  caught  the  popular  fancy,  but  it  brought  out  de 
Ravignan's  famous  reply:  "  De  1'existence  et  de 
1'institut  des  Jesuites."  It  was  received  with  im- 
mense favor,  applauded  by  such  men  as  Vatemesnil, 
Dupanloup,  Montalembert,  Barthelemy,  Beugnot, 
Berryer  and  others.  In  this  year  1844  alone,  25,000 
copies  were  sold. 

The  root  of  the  trouble  was  the  university's  monopoly 
of  education;  which  was  obnoxious  even  to  many 
who  cared  little  for  religion.  Catholics  objected  to  it 
chiefly  because  Cousin,  the  Positivist,  controlled  its 
philosophy.  Many  of  the  bishops  failed  to  see  the 
danger  until  Father  Delvaux  published  a  digest  of 
the  utterances  of  many  of  the  university  professors 
on  religious  subjects.  Then  the  battle  began.  On  the 
Catholic  side  were  such  fighters  as  Veuillot,  Monta- 
lembert, Cardinal  de  Bonald,  Mgr.  Parisis.  Ranged 
against  them  were  Michelet,  Quinet,  Sainte-Beuve 
and  their  followers.  The  battle  waxed  hotter  as  time 
went  on;  and  the  Jesuits  soon  became  the  general 
target.  Cousin  introduced  the  "  Lettres  Provinciates  " 
in  the  course.  Villemain  in  his  Reports  denounced 
"  the  turbulent  and  imperious  Society  which  the  spirit 
of  liberty  and  the  spirit  of  our  government  repudiate." 
Dupin  glorified  Etienne  Pasquier,  the  old  anti- Jesuit 
of  the  time  of  Henry  IV;  similar  eulogies  of  the  old 
enemy  were  pronounced  in  various  parts  of  France; 
Quinet  and  Michelet  did  nothing  else  in  their  historical 
lectures  than  attack  the  Society,  while  Eugene  Sue 
received  100,000  francs  from  the  editor  of  the  "  Consti- 
tutionel  "  for  his  "  Juif  errant,"  which  presented  to 


746  The  Jesui'ts 

the  public  the  most  grotesque  picture  of  the  Jesuits  that 
was  ever  conceived.  It  was  however,  accepted  as 
a  genuine  portrait. 

The  anti- Jesuit  cry  was  of  course  the  usual  cam- 
paign device  to  alarm  the  populace.  It  was  success- 
ful, chiefly  because  of  the  persistency  with  which  it  was 
kept  up  by  the  press,  and,  from  1842  till  1845,  the 
book-market  was  glutted  with  every  imaginable  species 
of  anti- Jesuit  literature.  Conspicuous  among  the  pro- 
Jesuits  were  Louis  Veuillot  and  the  Comte  de  Monta- 
lembert.  The  royalist  papers  spoke  in  the  Society's 
defense  but  feebly  or  not  at  all.  Finally,  a  certain 
Marshall  Marcet  de  la  Roche  Arnauld,  who  as  a  scho- 
lastic had  been  driven  from  the  Society  in  1824,  and 
who  had  been  paid  to  write  against  it,  suddenly  dis- 
avowed all  that  he  had  ever  said.  Cretineau-Joly  also 
leaped  into  the  fray  with  his  rapidly  written  six  volumes 
of  the  "  History  of  the  Society." 

It  would  have  been  comparatively  easy  to  continue 
the  struggle  with  outside  enemies,  but  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  battle,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Affre, 
ranged  himself  on  the  side  of  the  foe.  He  denied  that 
the  Jesuits  were  a  religious  order,  for  the  extraordinary 
reason  that  they  were  not  recognized  by  the  State; 
their  vows,  consequently,  were  not  solemn;  and  the 
members  of  the  Society  were  in  all  things  subject  to 
the  cure  of  the  parish  in  which  their  establishment 
happened  to  be.  He  even  exacted  that  he  should  be 
informed  of  everything  that  took  place  in  the  com- 
munity, and  if  an  individual  was  to  be  changed,  His 
Grace  was  to  be  notified  of  it  a  month  in  advance. 
The  archbishop,  however,  was  not  peculiar  in  'hese 
views.  They  were  deduced  from  Bouvier's  theology 
which  was  then  taught  in  all  the  seminaries  of  France. 

Of  course,  this  affected  other  religious  as  well  as 
the  Jesuits,  and,  hence,  when  Dom  Gueranger  wanted 


A  Century  of  Disaster  747 

to  establish  the  Benedictines  in  Paris,  the  archbishop 
had  no  objection,  except  that  "  they  had  no  legal 
existence  in  France."  To  this  Gueranger  immedi- 
ately replied:  "  Monseigneur!  the  episcopacy  has  no 
legal  existence  in  England,  Ireland  and  Belgium, 
and  perhaps  the  day  will  come*  when  it  will  not  have 
any  in  France,  but  the  episcopacy  will  be  no  less  sacred 
for  all  that."  The  great  Benedictine  then  appealed 
to  the  Pope,  and  when  the  reply  was  handed  to  him, 
the  Apostolic  nuncio  said:  "It  is  not  an  ordinary 
Brief  I  give  you,  but  an  Aposto^c  Constitution." 
In  it  the  archbishop  was  told  by  His  Holiness  that 
the  French  religious  had  not  been  destroyed  because 
of  the  refusal  of  the  government  to  give  them  a  legal 
existence.  His  Grace  had  also  received  a  communi- 
cation from  Father  Roothaan,  the  General,  who,  after 
reminding  him  of  the  provision  of  canon  law  on  the 
point  at  issue,  warned  him  that  if  he  persisted  in  his 
view  the  Jesuits  would  simply  withdraw  from  his  diocese. 
Meantime  the  Pope  had  suspended  the  execution  of 
the  orders  of  the  archbishop  and  shortly  after,  sent  him 
the  following  severe  admonition:  "  We  admit,  Vener- 
able Brother,  our  inability  to  comprehend  your  very 
inconsiderate  ruling  with  regard  to  the  faculties  for 
hearing  confessions  which  you  have  withdrawn  from 
the  Jesuit  Fathers,  or  by  what  authority  or  for  what 
reason  you  forbid  them  either  to  leave  the  city  or  to 
enter  it,  without  notifying  you  a  month  in  advance; 
especially  as  this  Society,  on  account  of  the  immense 
services  it  has  rendered  to  the  Church,  is  held  in  great 
esteem  by  far-seeing  and  fervent  Catholics  and  by 
the  Holy  See  itself.  We  know  also  that  it  is  calum- 
niated by  people  who  have  abandoned  the  Faith  and 
by  those  who  have  no  respect  for  the  authority  of 
the  Holy  See  and  we  regret  that  they  will  now  use  the 
authority  of  your  name  in  support  of  their  calumnies." 


748  The  Jesuits 

Of  course  the  archbishop  could  do  nothing  else  than 
obey.  But  he  did  not  change  his  mind  with  regard 
to  the  objects  of  his  hostility.  Possibly  he  was  consti- 
tutionally incapable  of  doing  so.  For  he  treated  his 
cathedral  chapter  in  the  same  fashion  and  we  read  in  a 
communication  from  the  French  ambassador  at  Rome 
to  Guizot  who  was  then  head  of  the  Government 
that  the  canons  of  Paris  had  complained  of  being 
absolutely  excluded  from  all  influence  or  authority  in 
the  administration  of  the  diocese.  This  note  gives  an 
insight  into  the  methods  of  Gallicanism,  which  con- 
ceded that  the  disputes  or  differences  of  the  clergy 
with  the  archbishop  were  to  be  passed  upon  by  a 
minister  of  state  even  if  he  were  a  Protestant. 

The  trouble  did  not  end  there  and  the  Parliamentary 
session  of  1844  marked  a  very  notable  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  French  province  of  the  Society  and  of 
the  Church  of  France.  M.  Villemain  presented  a 
bill  which  proposed  to  reaffirm  and  reassure  the 
university's  monopoly  of  the  education  of  the  country. 
It  explicitly  excluded  all  members  of  religious  congre- 
gations from  the  function  of  teaching.  It  is  true  that 
there  was  not  a  single  word  in  it  about  the  Jesuits, 
nevertheless  in  the  stormy  debates  that  it  evoked, 
and  in  which  the  most  prominent  men  of  the  nation 
participated,  there  was  mention  of  not  one  other  teach- 
ing body.  Almost  the  very  first  speaker,  Dupin, 
pompously  proclaimed  that  "  France  did  not  want 
that  famous  Society  which  owes  allegiance  to  a  foreign 
superior  and  whose  instruction  is  diametrically  opposed 
to  what  all  lovers  of  the  country  desire"  nor  was  it 
desirable  that  "  these  religious  speculators  should  slip 
in  through  the  meshes  of  the  law."  His  last  word  was: 
"  Let  us  be  implacable."  In  the  official  Report, 
however,  "  implacable  "  became  "  inflexible."  The 
ministerial  and  university  organ,  the  "  Journal  des 


A  Century  of  Disaster  749 

Debats,"  admitted  that  such  was  the  purpose  of  the 
bill. 

Villemain  fancied  that  he  had  silenced  the  bishops 
by  leaving  them  full  authority  over  the  little  semi- 
naries. He  was  quickly  disillusioned.  From  the 
entire  hierarchy  individually  and  collectively  came 
indignant  repudiations  of  the  measure  and  none  was 
fiercer  than  the  protest  of  Mgr.  Afire,  Archbishop  of 
Paris.  He  denounced  the  university  as  "  a  centre  of 
irreligion  "  and  as  perverting  in  the  most  flagrant  man- 
ner the  youth  of  France.  "  You  reproach  us,"  he 
said,  "  with  disturbing  the  country  by  our  protests. 
Yes,  we  have  raised  our  voices,  but  the  university  has 
committed  the  crime.  We  may  embarrass  the  throne 
for  the  present,  but  in  the  university  are  to  be  found 
all  the  perils  of  the  future."  The  excitement  was  so 
intense  that  the  government  actually  put  the  Abbe 
Combalot  in  jail  for  an  article  he  wrote  against  the 
bill,  and  the  whole  hierarchy  was  threatened  with 
being  summoned  before  the  council  of  state  if  they 
persisted  in  their  opposition. 

Montalembert  was  more  than  usually  eloquent  in 
the  course  of  the  parliamentary  war.  To  Dupin  who 
exhorted  the  peers  to  be  "implacable"  he  replied: 
"  In  the  midst  of  a  free  people,  we,  Catholics,  refuse 
to  be  slaves;  we  are  the  successors  of  the  martyrs 
and  we  shall  not  quail  before  the  successors  of  Julian 
the  Apostate;  we  are  the  sons  of  the  Crusaders  and 
we  shall  not  recoil  before  the  sons  of  Voltaire." 

There  were  thirty-five  or  forty  discourses  and  twelve 
or  fifteen  of  the  speakers  described  the  Society  as 
"  the  detested  congregation,"  while  the  members  who 
admitted  the  injustice  and  the  odious  tyranny  of 
the  proposed  legislation  made  haste  to  assure  their 
constituents  that  they  had  no  use  for  the  Jesuits. 
Cousin  consumed  three  hours  in  assailing  them; 


750  The  Jesuits 

another  member  of  the  Dupin  family  saw  "  an  appalling 
danger  to  the  State  in  the  fact  that  Montalembert 
could  speak  of  them  without  cursing  them,  and  that 
the  peers  could  listen  to  him  in  silence,  while  he 
extolled  the  poisoners  of  the  pious  Ganganelli."  Others 
insisted  that  the  Jesuits  had  dragged  the  episcopate 
into  the  fight;  even  Guizot  declared  that  "public 
sentiment  inexorably  repudiated  the  Jesuits  and  the 
other  congregations,  who  are  the  champions  of  authority 
and  the  enemies  of  private  judgment."  The  great 
man  was  not  aware  that  the  same  reproach  might 
be  and  is  addressed  to  the  Church. 

The  measure  was  finally  carried  by  85  against  51, 
but  the  heavy  minority  disconcerted  the  government 
and  better  hopes  were  entertained  in  the  lower  house 
to  which  Villemain  presented  his  bill  on  June  loth. 
There  it  was  left  in  the  hands  of  Thiers,  and  it  did 
not  reach  the  Assembly,  as  a  body,  for  an  entire  month. 
As  the  summer  vacations  were  at  hand,  the  projet 
de  loi  was  dropped.  Guizot  then  conceived  the  plan  of 
appealing  directly  to  the  Pope  to  suppress  the  French 
Jesuits.  He  chose  as  his  envoy  an  Italian  named 
Rossi,  who  had  been  banished  from  Bologna,  Naples 
and  Florence  as  a  revolutionist.  After  a  short  stay 
at  Geneva,  he  made  his  way  to  France  where,  by 
Protestant  influence,  chiefly  that  of  Guizot,  he  ad- 
vanced rapidly  to  very  distinguished  and  lucrative 
positions.  The  country  was  shocked  to  hear  that  an 
Italian  and  a  Protestant  should  represent  the  nation 
at  the  court  of  the  Pope  from  whose  dominions  he 
had  been  expelled,  but  Guizot  intended  by  so  doing,  to 
express  the  sentiments  of  his  government.  It  was  an 
open  threat.  Rossi  arrived  in  Rome  and  presented  his 
credentials  on  April  n. 

The  French  Jesuits  who  had  been  expelled  from 
Portugal  did  not  return  to  their  native  country;  for 


A  Century  of  Disaster          751 

Charles  X,  discovering  at  last  that  the  Liberals,  as 
they  called  themselves,  had  played  him  false,  resolved 
to  have  a  thoroughgoing  monarchical  government; 
and,  to  carry  out  his  purpose,  made  the  inept  Polignac 
prime  minister.  On  July  2  5  he  signed  four  ordinances, 
the  first  of  which  restricted  the  liberty  of  the  press; 
the  second  dissolved  parliament;  the  third  diminished 
the  electorate  to  25,000.  The  next  day,  the  press  was 
in  rebellion ;  Charles  abdicated  and  sailed  for  England. 
Of  course  the  Revolution  was  anti-religious  and  the 
Jesuits  were  the  first  sufferers.  House  after  house 
was  wrecked  and  the  scholastics  were  gathered  together 
and  hurried  off  to  different  countries  in  Europe. 
Thus  ended  the  first  sixteen  years  of  the  Society's 
existence  in  France,  after  the  promulgation  of  the  Bull 
of  Pius  VII  "  Sollicitudo  omnium  ecclesiarum." 

The  first  successor  of  Father  de  Cloriviere  as  vice- 
provincial  was  Father  Simpson.  France  was  made 
a  province  in  1820,  and  on  the  death  of  Father  Simpson, 
the  new  General,  Father  Fortis,  appointed  Father 
Richardot,  who  at  the  end  of  his  three  years'  term 
asked  to  be  relieved.  In  1814  Godinot  was  appointed, 
because  none  of  those  who  had  been  proposed  for 
the  office  had  been  more  than  ten  years  in  the  Society. 
Godinot  himself  had  been  admitted  only  in  1810. 
He  had  been  vice-provincial  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Faith,  and  eleven  years  after  his  admission,  was 
directing  the  scattered  Jesuit  establishments  in  Switzer- 
land, Belgium,  Holland  and  Germany.  In  Switzerland, 
he  had  given  the  impulse  to  the  college  of  Fribourg, 
which  afterwards  became  so  famous.  It  is  worth 
noting  that  when  he  was  a  Father  of  the  Faith  he 
was  a  member  of  the  community  of  Sion  in  Valais 
which  enjoyed  the  exceptional  privilege  of  being 
united  as  a  body  to  the  Society.  Everywhere  else 
each  individual  had  to  be  admitted  separately. 


752  The  Jesuits 

On  April  14,  the  peers  met  to  discuss  a  very  exciting 
subject.     A  protest  had  come  from  Marseilles  signed 
by  89    electors,   against  the  books  of  Michelet  and 
Quinet.     Immediately   Cousin   was   on   his  feet   and 
ascribed  it  to  the  Jesuits.     A  few  days  later,  another 
topic  engrossed  their  attention.     Dupin's  "  Manual  of 
Ecclesiastical  Law  "  had  been  condemned  by  Cardinal 
de  Bonald,   and   more  than  sixty  bishops  concurred 
with  him  in  prohibiting  the  book.     At  Rome,  it  was 
put  on  the  Index,  along  with  Cousin's  "  History  of 
Philosophy."     The  anti-Catholics  were  in  a  fury,  and 
on  April  24,  Cousin  addressed  the  House.     At  the  end 
of  a  three  hour  discourse  which  he  began,  unbeliever 
though  he  was,   by  protesting  his  respect  for  "  the 
august    religion    of   his    country,"    he    concluded   by 
saying   that    "  probably   the   action   of   the   bishops 
was  due  to  the  Jesuits  "  and  therefore  he  called  for 
the  enforcement   of   the    law   for   their   suppression. 
The  question  now  arose,  whether  they  could  proceed 
to  the  suppression  by  force  of  law  while  the  government 
actually  had   an  envoy  at  Rome  to  dispose  of  the 
affair  in   a   different    fashion.     It   was   decided   that 
the  non-authorized  congregations  would  be  suppressed, 
no   matter   what   might   be   the  .outcome  of   Rossi's 
mission.     Such  a  resolution   was  a  gross  diplomatic 
insult,  but  they  cared  little  for  that. 

Meanwhile  no  news  had  come  from  Rossi.  He  had 
been  left  in  the  ante- chamber  of  the  Pope  until  the 
Abbe  de  Bonnechose  had  succeeded  in  getting  him 
an  audience,  a  service  which  de  Bonnechose  had 
some  difficulty  in  explaining  when  he  was  subsequently 
made  a  cardinal.  A  congregation  of  cardinals  was 
named  to  discuss  Guizot's  proposition,  and  it  was 
unanimously  decided  to  reject  it;  and  when  Rossi 
asked  what  he  had  to  do,  he  was  told  he  might  address 
himself  to  the  General  of  the  Society.  To  make  it 


A  Century  of  Disaster  753 

easy  for  him,  Lambruschini,  the  papal  secretary  of 
state,  proposed  to  Father  Roothaan  to  diminish  the 
personnel  of  some  of  the  houses  which  were  too  much 
in  evidence  or  remove  them  elsewhere.  As  for  dis- 
solution of  the  communities  or  banishment  from 
France,  not  a  word  was  said. 

Immediately  Rossi  despatched  a  messenger  to  Paris 
with  the  account  of  what  had  been  done,  and  twelve 
days  afterwards  the  "  Moniteur "  stated:  "The 
Government  has  received  news  from  Rome  that  the 
negotiations  with  which  M.  Rossi  was  entrusted  have 
attained  their  object.  The  congregation  of  the  Jesuits 
will  cease  to  exist  in  France  and  will,  of  its  own  accord, 
disperse.  Its  houses  will  be  closed  and  its  novitiates 
dissolved."  On  July  15,  Guizot  was  asked  by  the 
peers  to  show  the  alleged  documents.  He  answered 
that  "  they  were  too  precious  to  give  to  the  public." 
They  have  been  unearthed  since,  and  it  turns  out 
that  Guizot 's  notice  in  the  "  Moniteur  "  does  not 
correspond  with  the  despatch  of  Rossi  who  merely 
said,  "  the  Congregation  is  going  to  disperse;  "  and 
instead  of  saying  "  the  houses  will  be  closed,"  he 
wrote:  "  only  a  small  number  of  people  will  remain 
in  each  house."  In  brief,  the  famous  Guizot,  so 
renowned  for  his  integrity,  prevaricated  in  this  instance, 
and  one  of  the  worst  enemies  of  everything  Jesuitical, 
Dibidous,  who  wrote  a  "  History  of  the  Church  and 
State  in  France  from  1789  to  1870"  declares  bluntly 
that  Guizot 's  note  in  the  "  Moniteur  "  was  not  only 
a  lie  but  "  an  impudent  lie." 

A  great  many  militant  Catholics  in  France  were 
indignant  that  Father  Roothaan  had  not  defied  the 
government  on  this  occasion.  Yet  probably  those 
same  perfervid  souls  would  have  denounced  him,  had 
he  acted  as  they  wished.  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  the  government  was  only  too  anxious  to  get  out 
48 


754  The  Jesuits 

of  the  mess  in  which  it  found  itself,  and  the  little 
by-play  which  was  resorted  to  harmed  nobody  and 
secured  at  least  a  temporary  respite. 

"  To  gain  the  support  of  the  Catholics  against  the 
anarchical  elements  which  were  everywhere  revealing 
themselves,"  says  the  Cambridge  History  (XI,  34) 
"  Guizot  had  tolerated  the  unauthorized  Congre- 
gations. This  had  the  immediate  consequence  of 
concentrating  popular  attention  upon  .those  religious 
passions  whose  existence  the  populace,  if  left  to  itself, 
might  have  forgotten.  Even  the  colleagues  of  Guizot, 
such  as  Villemain  and  the  editors  of  the  "Journal  des 
Debats,"  the  leading  ministerial  organ,  began  by  de- 
claring that  they  saw  everywhere  the  finger  of  the 
Jesuits.  In  each  party,  men's  minds  were  so  divided 
on  the  subject  of  the  Jesuits  or  rather  that  of  edu- 
cational liberty  which  was  so  closely  linked  with  it, 
that  nothing  of  immediate  gravity  to  the  Government 
would  for  the  moment  arise."  Liberals,  or  rather 
Republicans,  such  as  Quinet  and  Michelet,  in  their 
lectures  at  the  College  de  France  took  up  the  alarm 
and  spread.it  broadcast. 

Bournichon  in  his  "  Histoire  d'un  Siecle,"  (II,  492) 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  attack  was 
apparently  against  the  Jesuits,  but  in  reality  against 
the  Church.  The  "  Revue  Independante  "  did  not 
hesitate  to  make  the  avowal  that  "  Jesuitism  is  only 
a  formula  which  has  the  merit  of  uniting  all  the  popular 
hatred  for  what  is  odious  and  retrograde  in  a  degenerate 
religion."  Cousin  started  the  hue  and  cry,  in  this 
instance,  and  Thureau-Dangin  in  his  "  Histoire  de 
la  monarchic  de  Juillet  "  (p.  503-10)  says  that  "  Quinet 
and  Michelet  transformed  their  courses  into  bitter 
and  spiteful  diatribes  against  the  Jesuits.  Both  were 
hired  for  the  work,  and  did  not  speak  from  conviction." 
"  Quinet,"  says  Bournichon  (II,  494)  "  was  quite 


A  Century  of  Disaster  755 

indifferent  to  religious  matters  and  had  passed  for  a 
harmless  thinker  and  dreamer  up  to  that  moment. 
As  for  Michelet,  he  had  obtained  his  position  in  the 
Ecole  Normale  from  Mgr.  Frayssinous,  yet  he  forgot 
his  benefactor,  and  maintained  that  not  only  the 
Jesuits  but  Christianity  was  an  obstacle  to  human 
progress;  paganism  or  even  fetichism  was  preferable, 
and  Christ  had  to  be  dethroned." 

G-uizot  removed  Villemain  from  the  office  of  Minister 
of  public  instruction  and  reprimanded  Michelet  and 
Quinet.  Then  Thiers  seized  the  occasion  to  denounce 
Guizot  for  favoring  the  religious  congregations  and 
succeeded  in  defeating  the  minister's  measure  for 
educational  freedom.  It  was  at  this  stage  that  Guizot 
sent  his  envoy  Rossi  to  Rome  to  induce  Pope  Gregory 
XVI  to  recall  the  Jesuits  so  as  to  extricate  the  French 
government  from  its  difficulty.  The  Pope  refused, 
as  we  have  seen,  and  Father  Roothaan  merely  gave 
orders  to  the  members  of  the  Society  in  France  to 
make  themselves  less  conspicuous. 

In  1847  Gioberti  published  his  "  Gesuita  Moderno  " 
which  unfortunately  had  the  effe.ct  of  creating  in  the 
minds  of  the  Italian  clergy  a  deep  prejudice  against 
the  Society.  Gioberti  was  a  priest  and  a  professor 
of  theology.  He  first  taught  Rosminianism,  and  then 
opposed  it.  Under  the  pen-name  of  "  Demofilo  "  or 
the  "  People's  Friend  "  he  wrote  articles  for  Mazzini 
in  the  "  Giovane  Italia,"  and  was  the  author  of  "  Del 
Buono "  and  "  Del  primato  morale  e  civile  degli 
Italiani."  His  first  attack  on  the  Society  appeared 
in  1845  in  the  "  Prolegomeni  al  Primato;"  "  II  Gesuita 
Moderno,"  a  large  sized  pamphlet  full  of  vulgar  invec- 
tive, appeared  in  1847.  It  was  followed  in  1848  by 
the  "Apologia  del  Gesuita  Moderno."  He  was 
answered  by  Father  Curci.  Deserting  Mazzini,  Gio- 
berti espoused  the  cause  of  King  Charles  Albert,  and 


756  The  Jesuits 

founded  a  society  to  propagate  the  idea  of  a  federated 
Italy  with  the  King  of  Piedmont  at  its  head.  His 
last  book,  "  Rinnovamento  civile  d' Italia  "  showed 
him  to  be  the  enemy  of  the  temporal  power  of  the 
papacy.  His  philosophy  is  a  mixture  of  pantheistic 
ontology,  rationalism,  platonism  and  traditionalism. 
Though  a  revolutionist,  he  denied  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people.  His  complete  works  fill  thirty-five 
volumes. 

Of  course  the  Society  felt  the  shock  of  the  Italian 
Revolution  of  1848.  Gioberti's  writing  had  excited 
all  Italy  and  as  a  consequence  the  Jesuit  houses 
were  abandoned.  At  Naples,  the  exiles  were  hooted 
as  they  took  ship  for  Malta;  they  were  mobbed  in 
Venice  and  Piedmont.  The  General  Father  Roothaan 
left  Rome  on  April  28  in  company  with  a  priest  and  a 
lay-brother,  and  as  he  stood  on  the  deck  at  Genoa, 
he  heard  the  cry  from  the  shore,  "  You  have  Jesuits 
aboard;  throw  them  overboard."  There  was  nothing 
surprising  in  all  this,  however,  for  Rossi,  the  Pope's 
prime  minister,  was  stabbed  to  death  while  mounting 
t(he  steps  of  the  Cancelleria.  On  the  following  day, 
the  Pope  himself  was  besieged  in  the  Quirinal;  Palma, 
a  Papal  prelate,  was  shot  while  standing  at  a  window; 
and  finally  on  November  24,  Pope  Pius  fled  in  dis- 
guise to  Gaeta. 

In  Austria,  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  in  the  month  of 
April.  The  community  of  Innsbruck,  which  is  in 
the  Tyrol,  held  together  for  some  time,  but  finally 
drifted  off  to  France  or  America  or  Australia  or  else- 
where. The  emperor  signed  the  decree  on  May  7, 
1848.  It  applied  also  to  Galicia,  Switzerland,  and 
Silesia,  and  the  Jesuit  houses  all  disappeared  in  those 
parts. 

What  happened  to  the  Jesuits  in  France  in  the 
meantime?  Nothing  whatever.  They  had  obeyed  the 


A  Century  of  Disaster  757 

General  in  1845,  and  had  simply  kept  their  activities 
out  of  sight.  They  did  not  wait  for  the  Revolution, 
and  hence  although  the  "  Journal  des  Debats," 
announced  officially,  on  October  18,  1845,  that  "  at 
the  present  moment  there  are  no  more  Jesuits  in 
France,"  there  were  a  great  many.  Indeed,  the 
catalogues  of  1846  and  1847  were  issued  as  usual,  not 
in  print,  however,  but  in  lithograph,  and  as  if  they 
felt  perfectly  free  in  1848,  the  catalogue  of  that  year 
appeared  in  printed  form.  Meantime  de  Ravignan 
was  giving  conferences  in  Notre-Dame,  and  preaching 
all  over  the  country.  The  only  change  the  Fathers 
made  was  to  transport  two  of  their  establishments 
beyond  the  frontiers.  Thus  a  college  was  organized 
at  Brugelette  in  Belgium  and  a  novitiate  at  Issenheim. 
The  scholasticate  of  Laval  continued  as  usual.  What 
was  done  in  the  province  of  Paris  was  identical  with 
that  of  Lyons.  For  a  year  or  so  the  catalogues  were 
lithographed  but  after  that  they  appeared  in  the 
usual  form. 

For  two  years  Father  Roothaan  journeyed  from  place 
to  place  through  France,  Belgium,  Holland,  England, 
and  Ireland,  and  in  1850  returned  to  Rome.  The 
storm  had  spent  itself,  and  the  ruins  it  had  caused 
were  rapidly  repaired,  at  least  in  France,  where  the 
Falloux  Law,  which  was  passed  in  1850,  permitted 
freedom  of  education,  and  the  Fathers  hastened  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to  establish  col- 
leges throughout  the  country. 

Elsewhere,  however,  other  conditions  prevailed. 
In  1851  there  was  a  dispersion  in  Spain;  in  1859  the 
provinces  of  Venice  and  Turin  were  disrupted  and  the 
members  were  distributed  through  the  fifteen  other 
provinces  of  the  Society.  In  1860  the  arrival  of 
Garibaldi  had  already  made  an  end  of  the  Jesuits  in 
Naples  and  Sicily.  The  wreckage  was  considerable, 


758  The  Jesuits 

and  from  a  complaint  presented  to  King  Victor  Emman- 
uel by  Father  Beckx,  it  appears  that  the  Society  had 
lost  three  establishments  in  Lombardy;  in  Modena,  six; 
in  Sardinia,  eleven;  in  Naples,  nineteen,  and  in  Sicily, 
fifteen.  Fifteen  hundred  Jesuits  had  been  expelled 
from  their  houses,  as  if  they  had  been  criminals,  and 
were  thrown  into  public  jails,  abused  and  ill-treated. 
They  were  forbidden  to  accept  shelter  even  from  their 
most  devoted  friends,  and  the  old  and  the  infirm  had 
to  suffer  like  the  rest.  Nor  were  these  outrages  per- 
petrated by  excited  mobs,  but  by  the  authorities  then 
established  in  Sardinia,  Sicily,  Naples,  Modena  and 
elsewhere.  :l  This  appeal  for  justice  and  reparation 
for  at  least  some  of  the  harm  done,"  said  Father  Beckx, 
"is  placed,  as  it  were,  on  the  tomb  of  your  ancestor 
Charles  Emmanuel,  who  laid  aside  his  royal  dignity 
and  entered  the  Society  of  Jesus  as  a  lay-brother.  He 
surely  would  not  have  embraced  that  manner  of  life 
if  it  were  iniquitous."  But  it  is  not  on  record  that 
Victor  Emmanuel  showed  his  appreciation  of  his 
predecessor's  virtue  by  healing  any  of  the  wounds  of 
the  Society,  whose  garb  Charles  Emmanuel  had  worn. 

The  Jesuits  of  Venice  had  resumed  work  in  their 
province,  when  in  1866  war  was  declared  between 
Prussia  and  Austria.  Sadowa  shattered  the  Austrian 
forces,  and  though  the  Italians  had  been  badly  beaten 
at  Custozzio,  Venice  was  handed  over  to  them  by 
the  treaty  that  ended  the  war.  That  meant  of  course 
another  expulsion.  Most  of  the  exiles  went  to  the 
Tyrol  and  Dalmatia.  Then  followed  the  dispersion 
of  all  the  provinces  of  Italy  except  that  of  Rome. 

The  Spanish  Jesuits  had  recovered  somewhat  from 
the  dispersions  of  1854,  but,  in  1868  just  as  the  pro- 
vincial congregations  had  concluded  their  sessions,  a 
revolution  broke  out  all  over  Spain.  Many  of  the 
houses  were  attacked,  but  no  personal  injuries  were 


A  Century  of  Disaster  759 

inflicted.  After  a  while,  a  provisional  government 
was  established  at  Madrid  which  held  the  mob  in 
check  but  made  no  pretence  to  restrain  the  attacks 
on  priests  and  nuns.  Indeed,  it  inaugurated  a  bitter 
persecution  on  its  own  account.  The  minister  of 
justice  issued  a  decree  which  not  only  ordered  the 
Jesuits  out  of  all  Spain  and  the  adjacent  islands  within 
three  days,  but  forbade  any  Spaniard  to  join  the  Society, 
even  in  foreign  parts.  Of  course  all  the  property 
was  confiscated.  That  was  probably  the  chief  motive 
of  the  whole  procedure.  The  outcasts  for  the  most 
part  went  to  France,  and  a  temporary  novitiate  was 
established  in  the  territory  known  as  Les  Landes. 
They  returned  home  after  some  time,  but  were  expect- 
ing another  expulsion  in  1912  when  the  great  war  was 
threatening.  Possibly  the  hideous  scenes  enacted  in 
Portugal  in  1912  were  deemed  sufficient  by  the  revolu- 
tionists for  the  time  being. 

The  expatriation  of  the  Jesuits  and  other  religious 
from  Portugal  which  was  decreed  by  the  Republican 
government,  on  October  10,  1910,  six  days  after  the 
bombardment  of  the  royal  palace  and  the  -flight  of 
King  Manuel,  is  typical  of  the  manner  in  which  such 
demonstrations  are  made  in  Europe.  We  have  an 
account  of  it  from  the  Father  provincial  Cabral  which 
we  quote  in  part. 

"  After  the  press  had  been  working  up  the  populace 
for  three  years  to  the  proper  state  of  mind  by  stories  of 
subterranean  arsenals  in  the  Jesuit  colleges;  the  bound- 
less wealth  of  the  Fathers;  their  affiliated  secret 
organizations;  their  political  plots,  etc.,  the  colleges 
of  Campolide  and  San  Fiel  were  invaded.  The  occu- 
pants were  driven  out  and  led  between  lines  of  soldiers 
through  a  howling  mob  to  the  common  jail.  Those 
who  had  fled  before  the  arrival  of  the  soldiers  were 
pursued  across  the  fields  with  rifles,  and  when  caught 


760  The  Jesuits 

were  insulted,  beaten  and  spat  upon,  and  led  like  the 
others  to  prison.  They  had  to  eat  out  of  the  dishes  with 
their  hands,  and  at  night  sentinels  stood  over  them  with 
loaded  rifles  and  warned  the  victims  that  if  they  got 
up  they  would  be  shot.  Abandoned  women  were 
sent  in  among  them,  but  those  poor  creatures  soon 
withdrew.  The  prisoners  were  then  transferred  to 
Caixas  where  they  slept  on  the  floor.  Twenty-three 
were  confined  in  a  space  that  could  scarcely  accommo- 
date three.  They  were  kept  there  for  four  days,  and 
were  not  allowed  to  leave  the  room  for  any  reason 
whatever,  and  were  told  that  they  would  be  kept  in 
that  condition  until  they  began  to  rot,  and  that  then 
some  of  their  rich  friends  would  buy  them  off.  They 
were  photographed,  subjected  to  anthropometric  exami- 
nations, and  their  ringer  prints  taken,  etc.  They 
were  then  expelled  from  the  country  and  forbidden 
ever  to  return.  They  had  only  the  clothes  on  their 
backs,  and  had  no  money  except  what  was  given  them 
by  some  friends;  their  colleges  with  their  splendid 
museums  and  libraries  were  confiscated,  and  in  this 
condition  they  set  out,  old  and  young,  the  sick  and 
the  strong,  to  ask  shelter  from  their  brethren  in  other 
lands.  It  was  almost  a  return  to  the  days  of  Pombal. 

In  Germany  the  Kulturkampf  began  in  1870,  and  in 
1872  a  decree  was  signed  by  the  Kaiser,  on  June  14, 
1872,  expelling  all  members  of  the  Society,  and  with 
them  the  Redemptorists,  Lazarists,  Fathers  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  the  Society  of  the  Sacred  Heart. 
Some  of  the  Jesuits  went  to  Holland;  others  to  England 
and  America.  Contrary  to  expectations,  this  act  of 
tyranny  did  not  harm  the  German  province,  for,  whereas 
it  then  numbered  only  775,  it  now  (1920)  has  1210  on 
its  roll,  of  whom  664  are  priests. 

France  had  its  horror  in  1871,  when  on  May  24 
and  26,  Fathers  Olivaint,  Ducoudray,  Caubert,  Clerc 


A  Century  of  Disaster  761 

and  de  Bengy  were  shot  to  death  by  the  Communists, 
who  were  then  in  possession  of  Paris.  It  was  not, 
however,  a  rising  against  the  Jesuits.  There  were 
fifty-seven  victims  in  all:  priests,  religious  and 
seculars,  were  immolated.  At  their  head,  was  the 
venerable  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Mgr.  Darboy.  Again, 
on  March  29,  1880,  a  decree  issued  by  Jules  Ferry 
brought  about  a  new  dispersion  and  the  substitution 
of  staffs  of  non-religious  teachers  in  the  Jesuit  colleges. 
The  law  was  not  enforced,  however,  and  little  by  little 
the  Fathers  returned  to  their  posts.  Then  followed 
the  law  of  Waldeck-Rousseau  in  1901  against  unauthor- 
ized congregations,  which  closed  all  their  houses,  for 
these  religious  declined  to  apply  for  authorization 
which  they  knew  would  be  refused,  or  if  not,  would 
be  used  to  oppress  them.  The  communities  were, 
therefore,  scattered  in  various  houses  of  Europe.  The 
last  blow  was  the  summons  sent  to  all  parts  of  the 
world  for  every  Frenchman  not  exempt  from  military 
service  to  take  part  in  the  great  World  War,  as  chap- 
lains, hospital  aids  or  common  soldiers. 

The  simultaneity  as  well  as  the  similarity  in  the 
methods  of  executing  these  multiplied  expulsions  show 
clearly  enough  that  they  were  not  accidental  but  part 
of  a  universal  war  against  the  Church.  Thus,  at  the  other 
ends  of  the  earth,  similar  outrages  were  being  committed. 
When,  for  instance,  the  Conservatives  fell  from  power 
in  Colombia,  South  America,  in  1850,  the  Jesuits 
were  expelled.  They  went  from  there  to  Ecuador  and 
Guayaquil,  but  were  left  unmolested  only  for  a  year. 
In  1 86 1  they  were  re-admitted,  and  soon  had  fifty 
mission  stations  and  had  succeeded  in  converting  10,000 
natives  to  the  faith.  But  Garcia  Moreno  who  had 
invited  them  was  assassinated,  and  forthwith  they  were 
expelled.  A  second  time  they  were  recalled,  but 
remained  only  from  1883  to  1894,  and  from  there  they 


762  The  Jesuits 

returned  to  Colombia  where  they  are  at  present. 
In  Argentina,  whither  they  were  summoned  in  1836, 
their  houses  were  closed  in  1841.  They  entered 
Paraguay  in  1848,  where  the  old  Society  had  achieved 
such  triumphs,  but  were  allowed  to  remain  there 
only  three  years.  They  asked  the  Chilian  government 
to  let  them  evangelize  the  fierce  Araucanian  savages, 
but  this  was  refused.  At  the  death  of  the  dictator  Rosas 
in  1873,  they  again  went  to  Argentina  and  have  not 
since  been  disturbed.  They  have  had  the  same  good 
fortune  in  Chile. 

A  different  condition  of  things,  however,  obtained 
in  Brazil.  In  the  very  year  that  Rosas  died  in  Argen- 
tina, 1873,  the  Jesuit  College  of  Olinda  in  Brazil  was 
looted  and  the  Fathers  expelled.  The  reason  was  not 
that  the  Jesuits  were  objectionable  but  that  the  bishop 
had  suspended  a  young  ecclesiastic  who  was  a  Free- 
mason. The  College  of  Pernambuco  was  wrecked  by 
a  mob,  and  one  of  the  priests  was  dangerously  wounded. 
Worse  treatment  was  meted  out  to  them  when  the 
Emperor,  Don  Pedro,  was  deposed  in  1889.  Since 
then,  however,  there  has  been  comparatively  no  trouble. 

Of  course,  when  the  Piedmontese  broke  down  the 
Porta  Pia  the  Jesuits  had  to  leave  Rome,  where  until 
then  they  had  undisturbed.  The  novitiate  of  Sant' 
Andrea  was  the  first  to  be  seized;  then  St.  Eusebio,  the 
house  of  the  third  probation,  and  after  that,  St.  Vitalis, 
the  Gesu,  and  finally  the  Roman  College.  The  occupants 
had  three  months  to  vacate  the  premises.  The  other 
religious  orders  whose  general  or  procurator  resided  at 
Rome  could  retain  one  house  for  the  transaction  of 
business  but  that  indulgence  was  not  granted  to  the 
Jesuits.  Their  General  was  not  to  remain,  and  hence 
Father  Peter  Beckx,  though  then  seventy-eight  years 
old,  had  to  depart  with  his  brethren  for  Fiesole,  where 
he  was  received  in  the  family  of  the  Counts  of  Ricasole 


A  Century  of  Disaster  763 

on  November  9,  1873.  From  that  place  he  governed 
the  Society  until  the  year  1884,  when  he  was  succeeded 
by  Father  Anthony  Anderledy,  who  remained  in  the 
same  city  until  he  died.  Father  Luis  Martin,  the 
next  General,  returned  to  Rome  in  1893,  so  that  Fiesole 
was  the  centre  of  the  Society  for  twenty  years. 

As  the  chief  representative  of  Christ  on  Earth  is  the 
most  prominent  victim  of  these  spoliations,  and  as 
he  has  been  frequently  driven  into  exile  and  is  at 
present  only  tolerated  in  his  own  territory,  the  Society 
of  Jesus  with  the  other  religious  orders  cannot  consider 
it  a  reproach  but  rather  a  glory  to  be  treated  like  him. 
How  does  the  Society  survive  all  these  disasters? 
It  continues  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and  one  reads 
with  amazement  the  statement  of  Father  General 
Wernz  at  the  meeting  of  the  procurators  held  in 
September  and  October  1910,  when  in  a  tone  that  is 
almost  jubilant  he  congratulates  the  Society  on  its 
"  flourishing  condition."  He  said  in  brief: 

'  There  are  five  new  provinces;  a  revival  of  the 
professed  houses;  new  novitiates,  scholasticates,  ter- 
tianships  and  courses  in  the  best  colleges  for  students  of 
special  subjects;  and  a  superior  course  for  Jesuit 
students  of  canon  law  in  the  Gregorian  University. 
Next  year  there  are  to  be  accommodations  for  300 
theologians  (boarders)  at  Innsbruck,  which  institution 
will  be  a  Collegium  Maximum  for  philosophy,  theology 
and  special  studies.  The  novitiate  is  to  be  moved  to 
the  suburbs  of  Vienna.  In  the  province  of  Galicia 
sufficient  ground  has  been  bought  to  make  the  College 
of  Cracow  similar  to  Innsbruck,  and  a  beautiful 
church  is  being  built  there.  The  province  of  Germany 
though  dispersed  has  built  in  Holland  an  immense 
novitiate  and  house  of  retreats  and  the  Luxemburg 
house  of  writers  is  to  be  united  to  the  Collegium 
Maximum  of  Valkenburg.  The  Holland  province 


764  The  Jesuits 

has  more  diplomated  professors  than  any  other  in  the 
Society,  and  is  about  to  build  a  new  scholasticate. 
Louvain  is  becoming  more  and  more  a  house  of  special 
studies.  In  England,  the  Campion  house  at  Oxford 
is  continuing  its  success  and  there  is  question  of  moving 
St.  Beuno's.  The  Irish  province  is  looking  for  another 
site  for  the  novitiate  and  juniorate,  and  is  using  the 
University  to  form  better  teachers.  Canada  is  looking 
for  another  place  for  its  novitiate  and  so  are  Mexico, 
Brazil  and  Argentina,  while  Maryland  is  trying  to  put 
its  scholasticate  near  New  York. 

"  Not  much  remains  to  be  done  in  Spain.  However, 
Toledo  has  established  a  scholasticate  in  Murcia,  and 
Aragon  is  planning  one  for  Tarragona.  France  is 
dispersed,  but  it  has  furnished  excellent  professors 
for  the  Biblical  Institute  and  the  Gregorian  University. 
In  the  mission  of  Calcutta,  130,000  pagans  have  been 
brought  to  the  Faith  and  in  one  Chinese  mission, 
12,000.  The  numbers  could  be  doubled  if  there  were 
more  workers."  This  was  in  1910,  and  within  a  week 
of  this  pronouncement,  the  expulsion  in  Portugal  took 
place;  in  1914  the  war  broke  out  which  shattered 
Belgium  and  made  France  more  wretched  than  ever. 
What  the  future  will  be  no  one  knows. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

MODERN    MISSIONS 

During  the  Suppression  —  Roothaan's  appeal  —  South  America  — 
The  Philippines  —  United  States  Indians  —  De  Smet  —  Canadian 
Reservations  —  Alaska  —  British  Honduras  —  China  —  India  —  Syria 
—  Algeria  —  Guinea  —  Egypt  —  Madagascar  —  Mashonaland  — 
Congo — Missions  depleted  by  World  War — Actual  number  of  mis- 
sionaries. 

BESIDES  its  educational  work,  the  Society  of  Jesus 
has  always  been  eager  for  desperate  and  daring  work 
among  savages.  At  the  time  of  the  Suppression, 
namely  in  1773  three  thousand  of  its  members  were  so 
employed ;  and  the  ruthless  and  cruel  separation  from 
those  abandoned  human  beings  was  one  of  the  darkest 
and  gloomiest  features  of  the  tragedy.  To  all  human 
appearances  millions  of  heathens  were  thus  hopelessly 
lost.  Happily  the  disaster  was  not  as  great  as  was 
anticipated.  In  his  "  Christian  Missions  "  Marshall 
says :  —  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  God  had  resolved  to 
justify  his  servants  by  a  special  and  marvellous  Provi- 
dence before  the  face  of  the  whole  world,  and  had  left 
their  work  to  what  seemed  inevitable  ruin  and  decay 
only  to  show  that  neither  the  world  nor  the  devil, 
neither  persecution,  nor  fraud  nor  neglect  could 
extinguish  the  life  that  was  in  it.  And  so  when  they 
came  to  look  upon  it,  after  sixty  years  of  silence  and 
desolation  they  found  a  living  multitude  where  they 
expected  to  count  only  the  corpses  of  the  dead.  Some 
indeed  had  failed,  and  paganism  or  heresy  had  sung 
its  song  of  triumph  over  the  victims;  others  had 
retained  only  the  great  truths  of  the  Trinity  and  the 
Incarnation  while  ignorance  and  its  twin  sister,  super- 
stition, had  spread  a  veil  over  their  eyes,  but  still 

76S 


766  The  Jesuits 

the  prodigious  fact  was  revealed  that  in  India  alone 
that  there  were  more  than  one  million  natives  who,  after 
half  a  century  of  abandonment,  still  clung  with 
constancy  to  the  faith  which  had  been  preached  to 
their  fathers,  and  still  bowed  the  head  with  loving 
awe  when  the  names  of  their  departed  apostles  were 
uttered  amongst  them.  Such  is  the  astonishing  con- 
clusion of  a  trial  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
Christianity,  and  which  if  it  had  befallen  the  Christians 
of  other  lands,  boasting  their  science  and  civilization, 
might  perhaps  have  produced  other  results  than 
among  the  despised  Asiatics.  The  natural  inference 
would  be  that  besides  this  special  Providence  in  their 
regard  these  neophytes  had  been  well  trained  by  their 
old  masters  (I,  246). 

For  a  time,  of  course,  there  were  some  Jesuits  who 
lingered  on  the  missions  in  spite  of  the  government's 
orders  to  the  contrary.  Thus  we  find  a  very  dis- 
tinguished man,  a  Tyrolese  from  Bolzano,  who  died  at 
Lucknow  on  July  5,  1785.  His  name  was  Joseph 
Tiffenthaller  and  he  had  lived  forty  years  in  Hindostan. 
His  tombstone,  we  are  told,  may  be  still  seen  in  the 
cemetery  of  Agra  where  they  laid  his  precious  remains. 
He  was  a  man  of  unusual  ability  and  besides  speaking 
his  native  tongue  was  familiar  with  Latin,  Italian, 
Spanish,  French,  Hindustanee,  Arabic,  Persian  and 
Sanscrit.  He  was  the  first  European  who  wrote  a 
description  of  Hindostan.  It  is  a  detailed  account  of 
the  twenty-two  Provinces  of  India,  with  their  cities, 
towns,  fortresses,  whose  geographical  situations  were 
all  calculated  by  means  of  a  simple  quadrant.  The 
work  contains  a  large  number  of  maps,  plans  and 
sketches  drawn  by  himself  and  the  list  of  places  fills 
twenty-one  quarto  pages.  He  also  made  a  large 
atlas  of  the  basin  of  the  Ganges,  and  is  the  author  of 
a  treatise  on  the  regions  in  which  the  rivers  of  India 


Modern  Missions  767 

rise;  a  map  of  the  Gagra  which  Bernoulli  calls  "  a 
work  of  enormous  labor  "  is  another  part  of  Tiffen- 
thaller's  relics. 

In  the  field  of  religion  he  wrote  books  on  "  Brah- 
manism,"  "  Indian  Idolatry,"  "  Indian  Asceticism," 
"  The  religonof  the  Parsees  and  Mohammedanism  with 
their  relations  to  each  other."  He  also  published 
his  astronomical  observations  on  the  sun-spots,  on  the 
zodiacal  light,  besides  discussions  on  the  astrology  and 
cosmology  of  the  Hindus,  with  descriptions  of  the 
flora  and  the  fauna  of  the  country.  He  was  besides 
all  that  an  historian,  and  has  left  us  an  account  in 
Latin  of  the  origin  and  religion  of  the  Hindus,  another 
in  German  of  the  expedition  of  Nadir  Shah  to  India; 
a  third  in  Persian  about  the  deeds  of  the  Great  Mogul, 
Alam,  and  a  fourth  in  French  which  tells  of  the  incur- 
sions of  the  Afghans  and  the  capture  of  Delhi,  together 
with  a  contemporary  history  of  India  for  the  years 
1757-64.  In  linguistics,  he  wrote  a  Parsee-Sanscrit 
lexicon  and  treatises  in  Latin  on  the  Parsee  language, 
the  pronunciation  of  Latin,  etc.,  He  was  held  in  the 
highest  esteem  by  the  scientific  societies  of  Europe 
with  which  he  was  in  communication.  During  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  in  India,  the  struggle  was  going 
on  between  the  French  and  English  for  the  possession 
of  the  Peninsula. 

Of  course  he  was  not  alone  in  India,  at  that  time, 
for  Bertrand  tells  us  in  his  "  Notions  sur  1'  Inde  et 
les  missions  "  (p.  30)  that  "  the  Jesuits  had  a  residence 
at  Delhi  as  late  as  1790",  but,  unfortunately,  he  could 
say  nothing  more  about  them.  It  is  very  likely, 
however,  that  when  Pombal's  agents  attempted  to 
crowd  the  127  Jesuits  who  were  at  work  in  the  various 
districts  of  Hindostan  into  a  ship  which  had  accommo- 
dations —  and  such  accommodations  —  for  only  forty 
or  fifty,  many  of  them  had  perforce  to  be  left  behind, 


768  The  Jesuits 

or  perhaps  failed  to  report  at  the  place  of  emharcation. 
By  keeping  out  of  Goa,  they  could  easily  elude  the 
pursuivants.  The  jungle,  for  instance,  was  a  con- 
venient hiding  place.  However,  as  they  received  no 
recruits  the  work  went  to  pieces  when  the  old  heroes 
died,  so  that  there  were,  most  likely,  no  Jesuits  there 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was 
just  at  this  time,  that  England  took  possession  of  the 
greater  part  of  Hindostan  and,  as  a  consequence,  the 
country  was  soon  swarming  with  Protestant  parsons 
of  every  sect,  eager  to  fill  their  depleted  ranks  with 
new  converts  from  the  East. 

Marshall  had  been  employed  to  report  on  their 
success,  but  as  every  one  knows,  the  investigation 
brought  him  to  the  Church.  His  researches  furnish 
very  reliable  and  interesting  information  about  the 
conditions  prevailing  in  those  parts  among  the  old 
proselytes  of  the  Jesuits.  Quoting  from  the  "  Madras 
Directory  "  of  1857,  he  shows  that  in  the  Missions  of 
Madura,  founded  by  de  Nobili,  there  were  still  150,000 
Catholics,  and  in  Verapoli  as  many  as  300,000,  with  an 
accession  of  1000  converts  from  Mohammedanism 
every  year.  Nor  were  these  Hindus  merely  nominal 
Christians.  Bertrand  who  knew  India  thoroughly, 
writing  in  1838,  says  of  the  Sanars:  "  One  might 
almost  say  that  they  have  not  eaten  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil  with  Adam,  and  that 
they  were  created  in  the  days  of  original  innocence. 
Among  these  Hindus  there  are  numbers  who  when  asked 
whether  they  commit  this  or  that  sin,  answer: '  Formerly 
I  did,  but  that  is  many  years  ago.  I  told  it  to  the 
Father,  and  he  forbade  me  to  do  it.  Since  then  I 
have  not  committed  it.'  We  reckon  more  than  7000 
Christians  of  this  caste."  Father  Gamier,  S.  J.  wrote 
in  the  same  year  as  follows:  "The  Christians  of  this 
country  are,  in  general,  well  disposed  and  strongly 


Modern  Missions  769 

attached  to  the  Faith.  The  usages  introduced  among 
them  by  the  Jesuits  still  subsist;  morning  prayer  in 
common,  an  hour  before  sunrise;  evening  prayer  with 
spiritual  reading;  catechism  for  the  children  every 
day  given  by  a  catechist ;  Mass  on  Sunday  in  the  chapel. 
But  in  spite  of  these  excellent  practices  there  still 
remains  much  ignorance  and  superstition,  and  we  shall 
have  a  good  deal  to  do  to  form  them  into  a  people 
of  true  Christians  before  we  turn  our  attention  to.  the 
pagans.  We  shall  do  that  when  we  are  more  numerous." 

Of  course  these  testimonies  of  Jesuits  may  be  rejected 
by  some  people,  but  the  Protestant  missionaries  in 
Hindostan,  at  that  time,  leave  no  room  for  doubt  about 
the  actual  conditions.  Buchanan,  for  instance,  who 
was  particularly  conspicuous  among  his  fellows  and 
was  greatly  extolled  in  England  says:  "  There  are  in 
India  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome  who  deserve  the 
affection  and  respect  of  all  good  men.  From  Cape 
Commorin  to  Cochin,  there  are  about  one  hundred 
churches  on  the  seashore  alone.  Before  each  is  a  lofty 
cross  which  like  the  church  itself  is  seen  from  a  great 
distance.  At  Jaffna,  on  Sundays,  about  a  thousand 
or  twelve  hundred  people  attend  church  and  on  feast 
days  three  thousand  and  upward.  At  Manaar  they  are 
all  Romish  Christians.  At  Tutycorin,  the  whole  of 
the  tribe,  without  exception,  are  Christians  in  the 
Romish  Communion.  Before  they  hoist  sail  to  go  out 
to  sea,  a  number  of  boatmen  all  join  in  prayer  to  God 
for  protection.  Every  man  at  his  post,  with  the  rope 
in  his  hands,  pronounces  the  prayer." 

One  of  these  parsons  who  bore  the  very  inappropriate 
name  of  Joseph  Mullens  and  whose  writing  is  usually 
a  shriek  against  the  Church  says  that  "in  1854,  the 
Jesuit  and  Roman  Catholic  missions  are  spread  very 
widely  through  the  Madras  Presidency.  At  Pubna 
there  is  a  population  of  13,000  souls.  It  is  all  due  to 

40 


770  The  Jesuits 

the  Catholic  missionaries.  I  allow  that  they  dress 
simply,  eat  plainly  and  have  no  luxuries  at  home; 
they  travel  much;  are  greatly  exposed;  live  poorly, 
and  toil  hard,  and  I  have  heard  of  a  bishop  living  in 
a  cave  on  fifty  rupees  a  month,  and  devoutly  attending 
the  sick  when  friends  and  relatives  had  fled  from  fear. 
But  all  that  is  much  easier  on  the  principles  of  a 
Jesuit  who  is  supported  by  motives  of  self-righteous- 
ness than  it  is  to  be  a  faithful  minister  on  fhe  principles 
of  the  New  Testament." 

The  bloody   persecution  of  1805  in   China  showed 
how    fervent    and    strong    those   Christians   were   in 
their  faith.     Very  few  apostatized,  though  new  and 
terrible  punishments  were  inflicted  on  them.    Dr.  Wells 
Williams,    a   Protestant   agent   in   China,    says   that 
"  many  of  them  exhibited  the  greatest   constancy  in 
their  profession,  suffering  persecution,  torture,  banish- 
ment and  death,  rather  than  deny  their  faith,  though 
every  inducement  of  prevarication  and  mental  reser- 
vation was  held  out  to  them  by  the  magistrates,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  proceeding  to  extreme 
measures."     It  came  to  an  end  only  when  it  was 
discovered   that   Christianity   had   even   entered   the 
royal   family,    and   that   the  judges  were   sometimes 
trying  their  own  immediate  relatives.   In  1 8 1 5 ,  however, 
the  very  year  that  the  Protestant  missionaries  arrived 
in  China  the  persecution  broke  out  again.     Bishop 
Dufresse  was  one  of  the  victims,  and  when  the  day  of 
execution  arrived  he  with  thirty-two  other  martyrs 
ascended  the  scaffold.    In  1818  many  were  sent  to  the 
wastes  of  Tatary,  and  1823  when  pardon  was  offered 
to  all  who  would  renounce  their  faith,  after  suffering 
in  the  desert  for  five  years  only  five  proved  recreant. 
In  the  midst  of  all  this  storm  one  of  the  missionaries 
reported  that  he  had  baptized  one  hundred  and  six 
adults. 


Modern  Missions  771 

That  a  great  many  Chinese  had  remained  faithful 
Catholics  during  the  long  period  which  had  elapsed 
after  the  Suppression  was  manifested  by  a  notable 
event  recorded  by  Brou  in  "  Les  Jesuites  Mission- 
aires." 

"  On  November  i,  1903,"  he  writes  "  a  funeral 
ceremony  took  place  in  Zikawei,  a  town  situated  about 
six  miles  from  Shanghai.  It  was  more  like  the  triumph 
of  a  great  hero  than  an  occasion  of  mourning.  The 
people  were  in  a  state  of  great  enthusiasm  about  it, 
and  assembled  in  immense  throngs  around  the  tomb 
of  the  illustrious  personage  whose  glories  were  b'eing 
celebrated.  The  object  of  these  honors  was  Paul  Zi 
or  Sin,  a  literary  celebrity  in  his  day,  the  prime  minister 
of  an  emperor  in  the  long  past,  and  one  of  the  first 
converts  of  the  famous  Father  Ricci,  whom  he  had 
aided  with  lavish  generosity  in  building  churches  and 
in  establishing  the  Faith  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Shanghai. 

'  The  celebration  of  1903  was  the  third  centenary 
of  his  baptism,  and  all  his  relations  or  descendants 
who  were  very  numerous,  had  gathered  at  Zikawei 
for  the  occasion.  Among  them,  the  Fathers  discovered 
a  great  number  of  Christians  who  had  remained  true 
to  the  teachings  of  the  Church  during  those  300  years; 
and  there  were  many  others  throughout  the  country 
who  resembled  the  Zi  family  in  this  particular.  In 
Paul's  district,  that  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  Shanghai, 
there  were,  60  years  after  the  baptism  of  the  great 
man,  as  many  as  40,000  Christians,  and  in  1683  the 
number  had  risen  to  800,000,  but  a  century  later  the 
persecutions  had  cut  them  down  to  30,000  though 
doubtless  there  were  many  who  had  succeeded  in 
concealing  themselves . ' ' 

With  Cochin  the  Jesuits  never  had  anything  to  do, 
except  that  their  great  hero,  de  Rhodes,  was  its  first 


772  The  Jesuits 

successful  missionary  in  former  days.  It  was  at  his 
suggestion  that  the  Society  of  the  Missions  Etrangeres 
was  founded  and  took  up  the  work  which  the  Jesuits 
were  unable  to  carry  on  alone. 

About  Corea,  Marshall  furnishes  us  with  two  very 
interesting  facts.  The  first  is  that  England  had  the 
honor  of  giving  a  martyr  to  Corea,  the  English  Jesuit, 
Thomas  King,  who  died  there  in  1788,  that  is  fifteen 
years  after  the  Suppression.  Unfortunately  the  name 
"  King "  does  not  appear  in  Foley's  "  Records." 

The  second  is  vouched  for  by  the  "  Annales  "  (p.  190) 
which  relate  that  a  French  priest,  known  as  M.  de 
Maistre,  had  for  ten  years  vainly  endeavored  to  enter 
the  forbidden  kingdom  and  had  spent  60,000  francs  in 
roaming  around  its  impenetrable  frontier.  He  assumed 
all  sorts  of  disguises,  faced  every  kind  of  danger  in 
his  journeys  from  the  ports  of  China  to  the  deserts  of 
Leao-tong,  asking  alternately  the  Chinese  junks  and 
the  French  ships  to  put  him  ashore  somewhere  on  the 
coast.  Death  was  so  evidently  to  be  the  result  of 
his  enterprise  that  the  most  courageous  seaman  refused 
to  help  him.  It  required  the  zeal  of  an  apostle  to 
comprehend  this  heroism  and  to  second  its  endeavors. 
Father  Helot,  being  a  priest,  understood  what  the 
Cross  required  of  him,  and  as  a  member  of  a  society 
whose  tradition  is  that  they  have  never  been  baffled 
by  any  difficulties  or  perils,  felt  himself  at  the  post 
where  his  Company  desired  him  to  be.  The  Jesuit 
becomes  the  pilot  of  a  battered  ship,  safely  conducts 
his  intrepid  passenger  to  an  unknown  land,  and  having 
deposited  him  on  the  shore,  looked  after  him  for  a 
while  and  returned  to  his  neophytes  with  the  consoling 
satisfaction  of  having  exposed  his  life  for  a  mission 
that  was  not  his  own. 

From  the  Catalogues  of  the  Society,  we  find  that 
Louis  Helot  was  born  on  January  29,  1816.     He  was 


Modern  Missions  773 

a  novice  at  St.  Acheul,in  1835,  and  in  the  same  house 
there  happened  to  be  a  certain  Isidore  Daubresse, 
not  a  novice,  however,  but  a  theologian  who  was  well- 
known  later  on  in  New  York.  The  master  of  novices 
was  Ambrose  Rubillon  who  was  subsequently  assistant 
of  the  General  for  France.  By  1850  Helot  was  in 
China  and  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  hunting  after  souls  in 
the  region  of  Nankin.  He  died  sometime  after  1864. 
De  Maistre  succeeded  in  entering  the  country  and  we 
find  him  waiting  one  Good  Friday  night  to  welcome 
the  first  bishop  who  had  three  priests  with  him,  one 
of  whom  was  a  Jesuit. 

Before  the  re-establishment  the  few  Jesuits  in  White 
Russia  had  kept  up  the  missionary  traditions  of  the 
Society.  Their  missions  extended  all  along  the  Volga 
and  they  were  at  Odessa  in  1800.  In  1801,  thanks  to 
the  Emperor  Paul's  intercession,  they  had  returned 
to  their  ancient  posts  on  the  ^gean  Islands,  which 
were  in  the  dominions  of  the  Grand  Turk;  by  1806  they 
had  reached  Astrakhan;  and  in  1810  were  in  the  Cau- 
casus. Before  Father  Grassi  came  to  America,  he 
was  studying  in  St.  Petersburg  to  prepare  himself 
for  the  missions  of  Astrakhan. 

In  America,  in  spite  of  the  Suppression,  the  work 
of  the  old  Jesuits  did  not  fail  to  leave  its  traces.  Thus 
in  Brazil  where  Nobrega  and  Anchieta  once  labored, 
over  800,000  domesticated  Indians  now  represent  the 
fruit  of  their  toil.  Deprived  during  sixty  years  of 
their  fathers  and  guides  and  too  often  scandalized  by 
men  who  are  Christians  only  in  name,  the  native 
races  have  not  only  preserved  the  Faith  through  all 
their  sorrows  and  trials,  but  every  where  rejected  the 
bribes  and  promises  of  heresy.  In  that  vast  region,which 
stretches  from  the  mouth  of  the  San  Francisco  to  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama,  watered  by  the  mightiest  rivers 
of  our  globe,  and  including  the  district  of  the  Amazon 


774  The  Jesuits 

with  its  45,000  miles  of  navigable  water  communication, 
"  the  natives  who  still  find  shelter  in  its  forests  or 
guide  their  barks  over  its  myriad  streams,"  says  a 
Protestant  writer,  "  push  their  profession  of  the 
Catholic  religion  even  to  the  point  of  fanaticism." 

The  Paraguayans  of  course  could  be  counted  upon  not 
to  forget  their  fathers  in  Christ.  Both  Sir  Woodbine 
Parish  and  d'Orbigny  testify  that  the  effects  of  the 
preponderating  influence  of  the  monastic  establish- 
ments are  still  visible  in  the  habits  of  the  generality 
of  the  people.  One  thing  is  certain,  they  say,  and 
ought  to  be  declared  to  the  praise  of  the  Fathers, 
that  since  their  expulsion  the  material  prosperity  of 
Paraguay  has  diminished;  many  lands  formerly  culti- 
vated have  ceased  to  be  so;  many  localities  formerly 
inhabited  present  at  this  day  only  ruins.  What  ought 
to  be  confessed  is  this  —  that  they  knew  how  to  engrave 
with  such  power,  on  their  hearts,  reverence  for  authority 
that  even  to  this  very  hour  the  tribes  of  Paraguay 
beyond  all  those  who  inhabit  this  portion  of  America 
are  the  most  gentle  and  the  most  submissive  to  the 
dictates  of  duty. 

In  "La  Compafiia  de  Jesus  en  las  Republicas  del  Sur 
de  America,"  Father  Hernandez  tells  us  that  there 
were  three  former  Jesuits  in  Chile  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century:  Father  Caldera,  Vildaurre 
and  Carvajal.  The  first  two  died  respectively  in  1818 
and  1822,  the  date  of  Carvajal's  demise  is  not  known, 
nor  is  there  any  information  available  as  to  whether 
or  not  they  ever  re-entered  the  Society.  In  the  old 
Province  of  Paraguay,  there  was  a  Father  Villafane 
who  was  seventy-four  years  old  in  1814.  Hearing  of 
the  re-establishment,  he  wrote  to  the  Pope  asking  to 
renew  his  vows  when  "  in  danger  of  death."  The 
request,  of  course,  was  granted  but  he  continued  to 
live  till  the  year  1830.  Whether  he  waited  till  then 


Modern  Missions  775 

to  renew  his  vows  has  not  been  found  out.  In  that 
same  year  there  died  in  Buenos  Aires  an  Irish  Jesuit 
named  Patrick  Moran.  His  name  is  inscribed  not 
only  on  the  headstone  over  his  remains,  in  the  Recolta 
graveyard,  but  on  a  slab  inserted  in  the  wall  of  the 
church.  He  was  probably  a  chaplain  in  some  dis- 
tinguished family  or  what  was  more  likely  exercising 
his  ministry  in  the  Irish  colony  of  that  place. 

Coming  to  the  northern  part  of  the  hemisphere  we 
are  told  by  Mr.  Russell  Bartlett  that  the  Yaqui  Indians 
of  Sonora,  the  fishermen  and  pearl  divers  of  California 
are  invariably  honest,  faithful  and  industrious.  They 
were  among  the  first  to  be  converted  by  the  Jesuits. 
Originally  extremely  warlike,  their  savage  nature  was 
completely  subdued  on  being  converted  to  Christianity, 
and  they  became  the  most  docile  and  tractable  of 
people.  They  are  now  very  populous  in  the  southern 
part  of  Sonora. 

Anyone  who  has  visited  the  Abenakis  at  Old  Town 
in  Maine,  or  La  Jeune  Lorette  in  Quebec,  or  Caugh- 
nawaga  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  or  the  Indian  settlements 
at  Wekwemikong  and  Killarney  on  Lake  Huron  will 
testify  to  the  excellent  results  of  the  teachings  implanted 
in  their  hearts  by  the  old  Jesuit  missionaries  who 
reclaimed  them  from  savagery. 

A  most  remarkable  example  of  this  fidelity  to  their 
former  teachers  was  afforded  by  the  Indians  of  Caugh- 
nawaga.  They  were  mostly  Iroquois  from  New  York 
who  after  th'eir  conversion  to  the  Faith  were  sent  or 
went,  of  their  own  accord,  to  the  Christian  village 
that  was  assigned  to  them  above  Montreal.  Long 
after  the  Suppression  of  the  Society,  namely  in  the 
first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  party  of  these 
Indians  headed  by  two  chiefs  with  the  significant 
names  of  Ignace  and  Francois  R6gis  tramped  almost 
completely  across  the  continent,  and  without  the  aid 


776  The  Jesuits 

of  a  priest,  for  none  could  be  got,  converted  an  entire 
tribe  to  Christianity  and  did  it  in  such  wonderful 
fashion  that  the  first  white  men  who  visited  these 
converts  were  amazed  at  the  purity,  honesty,  self- 
restraint  and  piety  that  reigned  in  the  tribe.  Over 
and  over  again,  Ignace  travelled  down  to  St.  Louis, 
thus  making  a  journey  of  two  thousand  miles  each 
time  to  beg  for  a  Black  Robe  from  the  poor  missionary 
bishop  who  had  none  to  give  him.  The  devoted  Ignace, 
at  last,  lost  his  life  in  pursuance  of  his  apostolic  purpose. 
He  fell  among  hostile  Indians,  and  though  he  might 
have  escaped,  for  he  was  dressed  as  a  white  man,  he 
confessed  himself  an  Iroquois  and  died  with  his  people. 

Father  Fortis,  the  first  General  after  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  Society,  was  rather  averse  to  any  missionary 
enterprise  for  the  time  being,  because  he  judged  that 
he  had  not  as  yet  any  available  men  for  such  perilous 
work.  Father  Roothaan,  his  immediate  successor,  was 
of  a  different  opinion,  and  when  in  1833,  he  appealed 
for  missionaries  the  response  was  immediate.  Hence 
Bengal  was  begun  in  1834;  Madura,  Argentina  and 
Paraguay  in  1836,  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
China  in  1840.  In  1852  at  the  request  of  Napoleon 
III  the  penal  colony  of  French  Guinea  was  accepted  as 
were  the  offers  of  Fernando  Po  in  Africa  and  the 
Philippines  from  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain. 

The  Spanish  missions  in  Latin  America  were  the 
least  successful  of  any  in  the  Society.  The  Fathers 
were  debarred  from  any  communication  with  the 
native  tribes,  even  those  formerly  Christianized  and 
civilized  by  them,  or  if  permission  were  granted  it 
was  soon  under  some  frivolous  pretext  or  other  res- 
cinded, as  we  have  mentioned  above. 

The  Belgian  Jesuits  went  to  Guatemala  in  1843, 
but  only  after  considerable  trouble  was  their  existence 
assured  by  a  government  Act,  in  1851.  In  1871, 


Modern  Missions  777 

however,  they  were  expelled  and  withdrew  to  Nicaragua, 
from  which  they  were  driven  in  1884.  The  Brazilian 
Mission  was  inaugurated  by  the  Jesuits  whom  Rosas 
had  exiled  from  Argentina.  They  were  acceptable 
because  priests  were  needed  in  the  devastated  Province 
of  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  which  had  been  the  theatre  of 
an  unsuccessful  war  of  independence.  Of  course, 
the  usual  government  methods  in  vogue  in  that  part 
of  the  world  were  resorted  to. 

The  suppression  of  the  Society  wrought  havoc  in 
the  Philippines,  and  we  are  told  that  in  1836  as  many 
as  6000  people  were  carried  off  into  slavery  by  Moham- 
medan pirates,  a  disaster  that  would  have  probably 
been  prevented  had  the  missionaries  been  left  there. 
They  would  have  made  soldiers  out  of  the  natives 
as  they  did  in  Paraguay.  It  was  only  in  1859  that 
they  returned  to  that  field  of  work.  They  resumed 
their  educational  labors  in  Manila  and  at  the  same 
time  evangelized  Mindanao  with  wonderful  success. 
In  1 88 1  there  were  on  that  island  194,134  Christians 
and  in  1893,  302,107.  Inside  of  thirty-six  years,  the 
Fathers  had  brought  57,000  Filipinos  to  the  Faith 
and  established  them  in  Reductions  as  in  Paraguay. 
Great  success  was  also  had  with  the  Moros,  who  were 
grouped  together  in  three  distinct  villages.  The 
Spanish  War  brought  its  disturbances,  but  little  by 
little  the  Jesuits  recovered  what  they  had  lost  and 
there  are  at  present  162  members  of  the  province  of 
Aragon  at  work  in  the  Islands. 

In  the  United  States,  the  native  races  have  largely 
disappeared  except  in  the  very  far  West.  With  the 
remnants,  the  Jesuits  are,  of  course,  concerned,  and 
perhaps  the  most  reliable  official  estimate  of  the  success 
they  have  achieved  was  expressed  by  Senator  Vest 
during  the  discussion  of  the  Indian  Appropriation 
Bill  before  the  United  States  Senate  in  1900: 


778  The  Jesuits 

"  I  was  raised  a  Protestant,"  he  said;  "  I  expect  to 
die  one.  I  was  never  in  a  Catholic  church  in  my  life, 
and  I  have  not  the  slightest  sympathy  with  many  of 
its  dogmas;  but  above  all  I  have  no  respect  for  the 
insane  fear  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  about  to  over- 
turn this  Government.  I  should  be  ashamed  to 
call  myself  an  American  if  I  indulged  in  any  such 
ignorant  belief.  I  said  that  I  was  a  Protestant.  I 
was  reared  in  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church;  my 
father  was  an  elder  in  it  and  my  earliest  impressions 
were  that  the  Jesuits  had  horns  and  hoofs  and  tails, 
and  that  there  was  a  faint  tinge  of  sulphur  in  the 
circumambient  air  whenever  one  of  them  crossed 
your  path.  Some  years  ago  I  was  assigned  by  the 
Senate  to  examine  the  Indian  schools  in  Wyoming 
and  Montana.  I  visited  every  one  of  them.  I  wish 
to  say  now  what  I  have  said  before  in  the  Senate 
and  it  is  not  the  popular  side  of  the  question  by  any 
means,  that  I  did  not  see  in  all  my  journey  a  single 
school  that  was  doing  any  educational  work  worthy  of 
the  name  educational  work,  unless  it  was  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Jesuits.  I  did  not  see  a  single  Government 
school,  especially  day  schools  where  there  was  any  work 
done  at  all.  The  Jesuits  have  elevated  the  Indian  wher- 
ever they  have  been  allowed  to  do  so  without  the  inter- 
ference of  bigotry  and  fanaticism  and  the  cowardice 
of  politicians.  They  have  made  him  a  Christian,  have 
made  him  a  workman  able  to  support  himself  and  those 
dependent  on  him.  Go  to  the  Flathead  Reservation 
in  Montana,  and  look  at  the  work  of  the  Jesuits  and 
what  do  you  find?  Comfortable  dwellings,  herds  of 
cattle  and  horses,  self-respecting  Indians.  I  am  not 
afraid  to  say  this,  because  I  speak  from  personal 
observation,  and  no  man  ever  went  among  these 
Indians  with  more  intense  prejudice  than  I  had  when 
I  left  the  city  of  Washington  to  perform  that  duty. 


Modern  Missions  779 

Every  dollar  you  give  to  the  Government  day  schools 
might  as  well  be  thrown  into  the  Potomac  under  a 
ton  of  lead."  (Congressional  Records,  Apl.  7,  1900, 
p.  7.  4120.) 

The  most  conspicuous  of  the  missionaries  among 
the  North  American  Indians  is  Father  Peter  de  Smet. 
He  was  born  in  Dendermonde  on  the  Scheldt, 
and  was  twelve  years  old  when  the  booming  of  the 
cannons  of  Waterloo  startled  the  little  town.  He 
came  out  to  Maryland  in  1821  and  after  remaining 
for  a  short  time  at  Whitemarsh  in  the  log  cabin  which 
then  sheltered  the  novices  of  the  Province  of  Mary- 
land, set  out  on  foot  with  a  party  of  young  Jesuits  for 
the  then  Wild  West.  They  walked  from  Whitemarsh 
to  Wheeling,  a  distance  of  400  miles,  and  then  went 
in  flat  boats  down  the  Ohio  to  Shawneetown  and  from 
there  proceeded  again  on  foot  to  St.  Louis.  It  was  a 
journey  of  a  month  and  a  half. 

His  first  work  was  among  the  Pottawotamis,  and 
then  he  was  sent  to  the  wonderful  Flatheads,  whom 
the  Iroquois  from  Caughnawaga  had  converted. 
From  that  time  forward  his  life  was  like  a  changing 
panorama.  In  the  story,  there  are  Indians  of  every 
kind  who  come  before  us.  Gros  Ventres  and  Flatheads 
and  Pottawotamis,  and  Pend  d'Oreilles  and  Sioux; 
their  incantations  and  cannibalism  and  dances  and 
massacres  and  disgusting  feasts  are  described;  there 
are  scenes  in  the  Bad  Lands  and  mountains  and  forests; 
there  are  tempests  in  the  mid-Pacific  and  more  alarming 
calms;  there  are  councils  with  Indian  chiefs,  and  inter- 
views with  Popes  and  presidents  and  kings  and  ambas- 
sadors and  archbishops  and  great  statesmen  and 
Mormon  leaders,  always  and  exclusively  in  the  interests 
of  the  Church.  The  great  man's  life  has  been  written 
in  four  volumes  by  two  admiring  Protestants,  and 
another  biography  has  lately  come  from  the  pen  of  a 


780  The  Jesuits 

Belgian  Jesuit.  In  them  appears  an  utterance  from 
Archbishop  Purcell  about  the  hero,  which  deserves  to 
be  quoted.  "  Never,"  he  says,  "since  the  days  of  Xavier, 
Brebeuf,  Marquette  and  Lalemant  has  there  been  a 
missionary  more  clearly  pointed  out  and  called  than 
Father  de  Smet."  Thurlow  Weed,  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  American  statesmen  of  the  day,  said  of 
him:  "  No  white  man  knows  the  Indians  as  Father  de 
Smet  nor  has  any  man  their  confidence  to  the  same 
degree."  Thomas  H.  Benton  wrote  to  him  in  1852: 
"  You  can  do  more  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians  in 
keeping  them  at  peace  and  friendship  with  the  United 
States  than  an  army  with  banners." 

Again  and  again  he  was  sent  by  the  government  to 
pacify  the  Indians.  His  mission  in  1868  was  partic- 
ularly notable.  Sitting  Bull  was  on  the  warpath 
and  was  devastating  the  whole  regions  of  the  Upper 
Missouri  and  Yellowstone.  They  were  called  for  a 
parley,  and  de  Smet  went  out  alone  among  the  painted 
warriors.  He  held  a  banner  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in 
his  hand  and  pleaded  so  earnestly  with  them  to  forget 
the  past,  that  they  went  down  into  the  very  midst  of 
the  United  States  troops  and  signed  the  treaty  of 
peace  that  brought  50,000  Indians  to  continue  their 
allegiance  to  the  government.  De  Smet  in  his  journeys 
had  crossed  the  ocean  nineteen  times  and  had  travelled 
180,000  miles  by  sailing  vessels,  river  barges,  canoes, 
dogsleds,  snow  shoes,  wagons,  or  on  horseback  or  on 
foot.  "  We  shall  never  forget,"  said  General  Stanley 
of  the  United  States  Army  —  and  this  eulogy  of  the 
great  man  will  suffice —  "  nor  shall  we  ever  cease  to 
admire  the  disinterested  devotion  of  Reverend  Father 
de  Smet  who  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  years  did  not 
hesitate,  in  the  midst  of  the  summer  heat,  to  undertake 
a  long  and  perilous  journey  across  the  burning  plains, 
destitute  of  trees  and  even  of  grass,  having  none  but 


Modern  Missions  781 

corrupted  and  unwholesome  water,  constantly  exposed 
to  scalping  by  Indians,  and  this  without  seeking 
honor  or  remuneration  of  any  sort  but  solely  to  arrest 
the  shedding  of  blood,  and  save,  if  it  might  be,  some 
lives  and  preserve  some  habitations." 

In  Canada,  the  Indian  reservation  of  La  Jeune 
Lorette,  which  was  established  in  the  early  days  by 
Father  Chaumonot,  is  now  directed  by  the  secular 
clergy  of  Quebec.  The  Caughnawaga  settlement  near 
Montreal  was,  of  course,  lost  to  the  Society  at  the  time 
of  the  Suppression,  but  of  late  years  has  been  restored 
to  its  founders.  The  Canadian  Jesuits  also  look  after 
the  Indians  of  Lakes  Huron  and  Superior.  Their  latest 
undertaking  is  in  Alaska  which  began  by  a  tragedy. 

The  saintly  Bishop  Charles  John  Seghers,  who  was 
coadjutor  to  the  Bishop  of  Oregon,  had  himself  trans- 
ferred to  the  See  of  Vancouver  in  order  to  devote  his 
life  to  the  savages  of  Alaska.  In  1886  when  he  asked 
the  Jesuits  to  come  to  his  assistance,  Fathers  Tosi 
and  Robaut  were  assigned  to  the  work.  In  July,  the 
bishop,  the  two  Jesuits  and  a  hired  man  started  over 
the  Chilcoot  Pass  for  the  headwaters  of  the  Yukon. 
It  was  decided  that  the  two  Jesuits  should  spend  the 
winter  at  the  mouth  of  the  Stewart  River,  while  the 
Bishop  with  his  man  hastened  to  a  distant  post  to 
forestall  the  members  of  a  sect,  who  contemplated 
establishing  a  post  at  the  same  place.  During  the 
terrible  1,100  mile  journey  the  servant  became  insane 
and  in  the  dead  of  night  killed  the  bishop.  The  result 
was  that  new  arrangements  had  to  be  made  and  Father 
Tosi  was  made  prefect  Apostolic  in  1894.  His  health 
soon  gave  way  under  the  terrible  privations  of  the  mis- 
sion and  he  died  in  1898,  although  only  fifty-one  years  of 
age.  He  was  succeeded  by  Father  Rene  of  the  Society 
who  resigned  in  1904,  and  the  present  incumbent  Father 
Crimont,  S.  J.,  took  his  place. 


782  The  Jesuits 

The  condition  of  Alaska  has  greafljT  changed 
since  the  advent  of  the  missionaries.  The  discovery 
of  placer  gold  deposits  with  the  influx  of  miners  robbed 
a  portion  of  Alaska  of  its  primitive  isolation.  The 
invading  whites  had  to  be  looked  after,  and  hence 
there  are  resident  Jesuit  priests  at  Juneau,  Douglas, 
Fairbanks,  Nome,  Skagway,  St.  Michael  and  Seward. 
A  great  number  of  posts  are  attended  to  from  these 
centres.  The  Ten'a  Indians  and  Esquimaux  are  the 
only  natives  whom  the  missionaries  have  been  able 
to  evangelize  thus  far.  There  is  a  training-school 
for  them  at  Koserefsky,  where  the  boys  are  taught 
gardening,  carpentry  and  smithing  of  various  kinds, 
and  the  girls  are  instructed  in  cooking,  sewing  and  other 
household  arts.  This  work  is  particularly  trying  not 
only  because  of  the  bodily  suffering  it  entails,  but  because 
of  the  awful  monotony  and  isolation  of  those  desolate 
arctic  regions.  Some  idea  of  it  may  be  gathered 
from  a  few  extracts  taken  from  a  letter  of  one  of  the 
missionaries.  It  is  dated  May  29, 1916. 

'  The  Skularak  district  of  15,000  square  miles, 
depending  on  St.  Mary's  Mission,"  says  the  writer, 
"is  as  large  as  a  diocese.  It  has  seventy  or  eighty 
villages.  The  whole  country  along  the  coast  is  a  vast 
swamp  covered  with  a  net  work  of  rivers,  sloughs, 
lakes  and  ponds.  There  is  only  one  inhabitant  to 
every  ten  or  twelve  square  miles.  There  is  no  question 
of  roads  except  in  winter  and  then  as  everything  is 
deep  in  snow,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  one  is 
going  over  land  or  lake  or  river.  When  we  started  the 
thermometer  registered  28°  below  zero,  Fahrenheit. 
We  had  nine  dogs;  but  two  were  knocked  out  shortly 
after  starting.  Eleven  hours  travelling  brought  us 
to  our  first  cabins.  We  rose  next  morning  at  five,  said 
Mass  on  an  improvised  altar  and  set  out  southward. 
At  noon  we  stopped  for  lunch,  which  consisted  of  frozen 


Modern  Missions  783 

bread  and  some  tea  from  our  thermo  bottle.  It  was 
only  at  seven  o'clock  that  we  reached  a  little  'village' 
of  three  houses  at  the  foot  of  the  Kusilwak  Mountains, 
which  are  two  or  three  thousand  feet  high.  They  served 
as  a  guide  to  direct  our  course. ' '  At  another  stage  of  the 
journey  he  writes:  "  At  sundown  as  we  lost  all  hope  of 
reaching  any  village  we  made  for  a  faraway  clump  of 
brushwood  intending  to  pass  the  night  there.  It  is  full 
moon  and  its  rays  light  up  an  immaculate  white 
landscape,  there  is  a  bright  cloudless  sky,  and  every- 
thing is  so  still  that  you  cannot  even  breathe  without 
a  plainly  audible  sound." 

What  kind  of  people  was  he  pursuing?  Not  very- 
interesting  in  any  way.  "  I  came  upon  a  new  style 
of  native  dwelling,  a  low-roofed  miserable  hovel  about 
twelve  feet  square;  in  the  centre,  a  pit,  about  two  and 
a  half  feet  deep,  was  the  sink  and  dumping  ground  for 
the  refuse  of  the  house.  There  we  had  to  descend 
if  we  wanted  the  privilege  of  standing  erect.  That  is 
where  I  placed  myself  to  perform  a  baptism  of  the  latest 
arrival  of  the  family  whom  the  mother  held  on  her 
lap  squatted  on  the  higher  ground  which  served  as 
a  bed.  The  habits  of  the  natives  cannot  be  described." 
"  Our  dogs  were  so  exhausted,"  he  says  in  the  course 
of  his  narrative,  "that  they  lay  down  at  once  without 
waiting  to  have  their  harness  taken  off.  We  fed  them 
their  ration  of  dry  fish,  they  curled  up  in  the  snow  and 
went  to  sleep.  As  for  ourselves  we  tried  to  build 
a  fire  but  could  not  succeed  in  boiling  enough  of  melted 
snow  for  even  a  cup  of  tea;  a  box  of  sardines,  the 
contents  of  which  were  so  frozen  that  I  had  to  chop 
them  up  with  the  prong  of  a  fork  constituted  my  royal 
supper.  A  hole  was  soon  dug  in  the  snow,  by  using 
the  snow  shoes  for  a  shovel  and  a  few  sticks  thrown 
in  to  prevent  direct  contact  with  the  snow.  I  opened 
my  bag  of  blankets,  put  on  my  fur  parkey  and  tried 


784  The  Jesuits 

to  keep  the  blankets  around  me  to  keep  from  freezing. 
After  a  couple  of  hours  I  felt  my  limbs  getting  numb, 
and  I  was  compelled  to  crawl  out  and  look  around  for 
a  hard  mound  of  snow  where  I  began  to  execute  a 
dance  that  would  baffle  the  best  orchestra.  I  jigged 
and  clogged  around  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  and 
feeling  I  was  alive  again  sought  my  blankets  once  more, 
but  the  cold  was  too  intense  and  I  could  only  say 
a  few  prayers  and  make  a  peaceful  application  of  the 
meditation  '  de  propriis  peccatis.' 

"  Another  time,  after  fruitlessly  scanning  the  horizon 
for  a  sign  of  a  village,  we  found  ourselves  compelled 
to  pass  the  night  in  the  open  air.  This  time  I  con- 
structed a  scientific  Pullman  berth  for  myself. 
Selecting  the  leeward  side  of  an  ice  block,  I  dug  a  trench 
in  the  snow,  using  the  fire-pan  as  a  shovel.  I  hewed  out 
the  pillow  at  the  head  and  made  the  grave  (indeed  it 
looked  like  one)  about  two  feet  wide  and  two  deep 
and  my  exact  length.  Stretching  my  cassock  over  it, 
with  the  snow  shoes  as  a  supporting  rack,  I  crawled 
into  it  and  passed  a  tolerably  comfortable  night, 
though  I  awoke  dozens  of  times  from  the  violent 
coughing  that  had  stuck  to  me  since  my  stay  in 
Tumna.  So  it  went  on  till  April  8.  We  had  been 
three  weeks  on  the  road.  Never  had  the  trip  to 
Tumna  lasted  so  long.  This  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  dogs  were  exhausted  and  we  had  to  walk  back 
for  about  250  miles  in  the  snow." 

The  missionaries  of  the  old  Society  would  recognize 
this  light  hearted  modern  American  apostle  as  their 
brother. 

Another  example  in  a  region  which  is  the  very 
opposite  of  Alaska  will  convince  the  skeptic  that  the 
modern  Jesuit  retains  the  old  heroic  spirit  of  the 
missions.  This  time  we  are  in  the  deadly  swamps 
and  forests  of  British  Honduras  and  the  apostle  there 


Modern  Missions  785 

is  Father  William  Stanton  of  the  Missouri  province. 
As  a  scholastic  he  was  teaching  the  dark  skinned  boys 
of  Belize  and  incidentally  gathering  numberless  speci- 
mens of  tropical  flora  and  fauna  for  the  Smithsonian 
Institute  in  Washington.  From  there  he  went  to  the 
other  end  of  the  earth  and  was  put  at  scientific  work 
in  the  Observatory  at  Manila.  He  was  the  first 
American  priest  ordained  in  the  Philippines,  and  his 
initial  ministerial  work  was  to  attend  to  the  American 
soldiers,  who  were  dying  by  scores  of  cholera.  After 
that  we  find  him  again  in  Honduras,  no  longer  in  college 
but  in  the  bush  with  about  800  Maya  Indians,  whose 
language  he  did  not  know  but  soon  learned.  He  was 
still  a  naturalist  but  first  of  all  he  was  absorbed  in 
the  care  of  the  lazy  and  degraded  Indians.  His  hut 
was  made  of  sticks  plastered  with  mud  and  thatched 
with  palm  leaves  and  he  was  all  alone. 

"Roads!  Roads!"  he  writes,  "they  are  simply 
unspeakable.  It's  only  a  little  over  nine  miles  from 
Benque  Viejo  to  Cayo  but  it  took  me  five  hours  to  do 
it  on  horseback.  Rain  and  the  darkness  caught  me. 
It  was  so  dark  I  could  not  see  my  horse's  head  but 
my  Angel  Guardian  brought  me  through  all  right. 
.  .  .  The  only  beasts  that  bother  me  are  the  garrapatas 
(ticks).  I  have  to  spend  from  an  hour  and  a  half  to 
two  hours  picking  them  out  of  my  flesh  and  my  whole 
body  is  thickly  peppered  with  blotchy  sores  where 
they  have  left  their  mark.  But  one  can't  expect  to 
have  everything  his  own  way  in  this  life  even  in  the 
paradise  of  Benque.  By  the  way,  before  I  forget, 
would  you  try  to  send  me  a  wash  basin  or  bowl  of 
glazed  metal.  I  have  nothing  but  the  huge  tin  dishpan 
of  the  kitchen  to  wash  my  face  in.  It's  a  little  inconven- 
ient to  scour  the  grease  out  every  time  I  want  to  wash 
and  I  don't  want  to  fall  into  real  Spanish  costumbres" 
His  table  was  a  packing  case,  his  chair  a  box  of 
so 


786  The  Jesuits 

tinned  goods,  his  bed  four  ropes  and  a  mat  woven 
of  palm  leaves.  He  had  one  cup,  plate  and  saucer. 

"  I  have  forty  stations  to  get  around  to,  and  I  haven't 
a  decent  crucifix,  or  ciborium,  and  only  one  chalice. 
I  am  not  squealing  for  my  house  but  for  the  Lord's. 
My  good  little  mud  house  is  a  palace,  even  if  the  pigs 
and  goats  of  the  village  do  break  in  now  and  then  to 
make  a  meal  off  one's  old  boots  or  the  scabbard  of 
one's  machete.  My  bush  church  is  fine;  same  archi- 
tecture as  my  house,  only  larger.  In  ch  rch,  the  men 
stand  around  the  walls,  while  the  women  and  children 
squat  on  the  clay  floor  and  the  babies  roll  all  over, 
garbed  only  in  angelic  innocence." 

Of  one  of  his  journeys  he  writes:  "  I  have  just 
returned  from  a  river  trip,  after  being  away  from 
home  thirty-one  days  moving  about  from  place  to 
place  among  my  scattered  people  on  the  river  banks 
and  in  the  bush.  My  health  was  good  until  last  week 
when  I  got  a  little  stroke  from  the  heat,  followed 
by  several  days'  fever  which  put  me  on  my  back  for 
four  days,  but  I  am  now  myself  again.  Fortunately 
I  had  only  three  more  days'  journey,  and  with  the  help 
of  my  two  faithful  Indians  I  arrived  safely  at  Benque." 
These  "  three  days,"  though  he  does  not  say  so,  were 
days  of  torture,  and  his  Indians  wondered  if  they  could 
get  him  back  alive.  "  I  am  now  back  as  far  as  Cayo, 
arriving  at  1.30  this  morning.  Everything  is  flooded 
with  mud  and  water.  I  must  get  a  horse  and  get 
out  to  Benque  today,  as  I  hear  Father  Henneman  is 
down  with  fever.  I  have  ten  miles  more  to  make, 
and  over  a  terrible  road  through  the  bush,  with  the 
horse  up  to  his  belly  in  mud  and  water  most  of  the 
time;  but  with  the  Lord's  help  I  hope  to  be  safe  at  home 
before  night.  I  have  been  away  only  a  week,  having 
made  some  hundred  and  sixty  miles  on  horseback, 
the  whole  of  it  through  a  dense  jungle.  I  had  to  cut 


Modern  Missions  787 

my  way  through  with  my  machete,  for  the  rank  vege- 
tation and  hanging  lianas  completely  closed  the  narrow 
trail." 

He  had  gone  out  to  visit  a  village  and  crossed  a  ford 
on  the  way.  The  river  was  high  and  the  current 
strong.  His  horse  was  swept  off  his  feet  and  Father 
Stanton  slipped  out  of  his  saddle  and  swam  beside 
the  animal.  Some  quarter  of  a  mile  below  there  was 
a  dangerous  fall  in  the  river,  but  they  managed  to  reach 
the  bank  a  hundred  feet  above  the  fall.  He  caught 
hold  of  a  branch,  but  it  broke  and  he  was  swept  down 
the  stream.  With  a  prayer  to  his  Guardian  Angel  he 
struck  out  for  the  deepest  water  and  went  over  the  fall. 
Some  Indians  near  the  bank  saw  the  bearded  white 
man  go  over  the  roaring  cataract  and  they  thought 
he  was  a  wizard,  but  he  went  safely  .through,  and  then 
with  long  powerful  strokes  (he  was  a  marvellous 
swimmer)  he  made  for  the  bank.  Then  waving  his 
hand  to  the  startled  Indians,  he  cut  his  way  with  his 
machete  through  the  bush  to  look  for  his  horse. 
Another  time  we  find  him  returning  after  what  he 
calls  a  "  stiff  trip,"  soaking  wet  all  the  time,  for  he 
had  to  swim  across  a  swift  river  with  boots  and  clothes 
on,  he  was  all  day  in  the  saddle,  was  caught  one  night 
in  the  jungle  in  a  swamp,  pitch  dark,  knee  deep  in 
the  mud  -  -  "  Clouds  of  mosquitos  and  swarms  of  fiery 
ants  had  taken  their  fill  of  me,"  he  writes,  "while  the 
blood  sucking  vampire  bats  lapped  my  poor  horse. 
We  got  out  all  right  and  I  had  the  consolation  of 
being  told  by  an  Indian  that  three  big  tigers  (jaguars) 
had  been  killed  near  the  place  last  month." 

On  April  13,  1909,  he  says:  "Just  at  present  I  am 
flat  on  my  back  with  an  attack  of  something,  apparently 
acute  articular  rheumatism."  He  felt  it,  the  first 
time  while  he  was  working  in  the  garden.  "  I  simply 
squirmed  on  the  ground  and  screeched  like  a  wild 


788  The  Jesuits 

Indian."  And  yet  he  starts  off  to  Belize  on  horseback 
to  see  the  doctor,  which  meant  a  distant  journey  of 
four  days,  and  he  had  to  sleep  in  the  bush  one  night. 
From  Belize  he  returned  by  water  in  a  "  pitpan," 
a  freight  boat  for  shallow  rivers  that  can  easily  upset 
in  the  slightest  current.  That  meant  eight  weary 
days  without  room  even  to  stretch  himself  out  at  night ; 
with  no  awning  in  the  day  to  shield  him  from  the  sun 
and  frequently  drenched  by  torrential  rains.  In 
September  he  is  following  his  horse  through  the  mud 
of  the  jungle.  In  October  he  was  sent  for  again  by 
the  doctor  at  Belize,  and  returns  a  second  time  to  his 
mission  which  meant  eight  days  in  the  forest  alone. 

Finally,  Father  Stanton  was  ordered  home  to  St. 
Louis,  and  it  was  found  that  his  whole  body  was 
ringed  around  with  a  monstrous  growth  of  cancer. 
He  died  in  intense  agony,  but  never  spoke  of  his 
sufferings.  In  his  delirium  he  was  talking  about 
Honduras.  Only  once  he  said  "  I  am  so  long  a-dying." 
He  finally  expired  on  March  10,  1910.  He  had  just 
completed  his  fortieth  year,  but  his  missionary  work 
was  equal  to  anything  in  the  old  Society. 

When  the  Jesuits  resumed  work  in  China  in  1841  they 
found  that  all  over  the  country  there  were  great 
numbers  of  natives  who  had  kept  the  Faith  in  spite 
of  the  bitter  persecutions  to  which  they  had  been 
subjected  during  the  absence  of  the  missionaries. 
The  Province  of  Kiang-nan,  the  capital  of  which  is 
Nankin,  and  the  city  where  Ricci  began  his  apostolic 
labors,  welcomed  back  the  great  man's  brethren. 

Kiang-nan  is  a  territory  half  the  size  of  France. 
In  the  west  and  south-west  it  is  hilly,  but  the  rest 
of  it  is  an  immense  plain  watered  by  the  Yang-tse- 
Kiang  and  by  countless  lakes,  streams  and  canals. 
It  is  marvellously  fertile  and  furnishes  a  double  crop 
every  year.  The  rivers  swarm  with  fish,  and  the 


Modern  Missions  789 

land  with  human  beings.  In  it  are  many  large  cities 
such  as  Shanghai  with  its  650,000  inhabitants;  Tchen- 
Kiang  with  170,000,  Odi-si  with  200,000  and  so  on. 
Nankin  is  the  residence  of  the  viceroy,  and  was  formerly 
the  "  Capital  of  the  south,"  and  the  rival  of  Pekin, 
but  later  it  had  only  130,000  people  within  its  walls. 
At  present,  however,  it  is  reviving  and  is  credited  with 
three  or  four  hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  Before 
the  Jesuits  arrived,  the  country  had  been  cared  for 
by  other  religious  orders,  chiefly  the  Lazarists  and  the 
Fathers  of  the  Missions  Etrangeres. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Shanghai,  there  were  48,000 
Catholic  Chinese  who  dated  back  through  their 
ancestors  to  the  time  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Perhaps  four  thousand  more 
might  have  been  found  in  the  rest  of  the  province, 
but  they  were  submerged  in  the  mass  of  45,000,000 
idolaters.  The  outlook  on  the  whole  was  consoling, 
for  the  vicar  Apostolic,  Mgr.  de  Besi,  had  founded 
a  seminary,  which  before  1907  furnished  more  than 
one  hundred  native  priests.  The  work  of  the  Holy 
Childhood  was  enthusiastically  carried  on,  with  the 
result  that  in  the  years  1847-48,  60,963  names  appear 
on  the  baptismal  registers.  In  1849  the  Jesuits  had 
establishments  at  Nankin,  Ousi  and  along  the  Grand 
Canal.  That  year,  however,  was  made  gloomy  by 
floods,  famine  and  sickness.  Nevertheless  the  trials 
had  the  good  result  of  compelling  the  erection  of 
orphanages  where  the  Faith  could  be  taught  without 
difficulty.  In  1852  the  revolt  against  the  Manchu 
dynasty  broke  out,  and  in  1853  Nankin  and  Shanghai 
were  sacked.  Everything  Christian  disappeared  in  the 
general  carnage;  but  in  1855  the  imperial  troops  with 
the  aid  of  the  French  Admiral  Laguerre  entered 
Shanghai,  but  Nankin  and  the  provinces  remained 
in  the  hands  of  the  rebels. 


790  The  Jesuits 

Certain  ecclesiastical  changes  also  occurred  at  that 
time.  Pekin  and  Nankin  disappeared  as  dioceses, 
and  the  province  of  Kiang-nan  became  a  vicariate 
Apostolic,  whose  administration  was  entrusted  to  the 
Jesuits  of  Paris  under  Mgr.  Borgniet.  He  was  ap- 
pointed in  1856.  The  vicariate  of  South-Eastern 
Tche-ly  was  given  to  the  province  of  Champagne  and 
Mgr.  Languillat  began  his  work  there  with  three 
Fathers  and  9,475  old  Christians,  the  descendants  of 
the  neophytes  of  Pekin. 

In  1860  the  Chinese  war  broke  out  and  the  Taipings 
availed  themselves  of  it  for  another  rising.  The 
English  and  French,  who  were  fighting  the  emperor, 
held  different  opinions  about  what  to  do  with  the 
rebels,  and  finally  contented  themselves  with  defending 
Shanghai ;  leaving  the  rest  of  the  country  to  be  ravaged 
at  will.  Father  Massa  was  thrown  into  prison  and 
was  about  to  be  executed,  but  contrived  to  make  his 
escape.  His  brother  Louis,  however,  was  put  to  death 
at  Tsai-kia-ouan,  along  with  a  crowd  of  orphans 
whom  he  was  trying  to  protect.  In  1861  Father 
Vuillaume  was  killed  at  Pou-tong  and  others  were 
robbed,  taken  prisoners  and  ill-treated.  In  1862  an 
epidemic  of  cholera  broke  out  in  the  province  and 
lasted  two  years;  the  vicar  Apostolic,  Mgr.  Borgniet, 
sixteen  religious  and  four  hundred  of  the  faithful 
succumbed  to  the  pestilence.  In  the  following  year 
six  more  Jesuits  died.  At  this  time  General  Gordon 
was  beginning  his  great  career.  He  was  then  only 
a  major  but  he  reorganized  the  imperial  army,  crushed 
the  rebels  and  took  Nankin.  This  gave  a  breathing 
spell  to  the  missionaries;  but  in  1868,  the  Taipings 
were  out  again,  under  another  name,  and  anarchy 
reigned  for  an  entire  year. 

In  the  mean  time  the  cities  of  Shanghai  and  Zikawei 
had  relatively  little  to  suffer,  and  the  end  of  the  war 


Modern  Missions  791 

gave  the  missionaries  the  right  to  build  churches,  to 
exercise  the  ministry  everywhere,  and  even  to  be 
compensated  for  the  destruction  of  their  property. 
But  the  rights  were  merely  on  paper,  and  fourteen 
or  fifteen  years  of  quarrels  with  every  little  mandarin 
in  the  country  followed.  Nevertheless  the  work  went 
on.  At  Zikawei,  for  instance,  schools  were  established, 
a  printing-establishment  inaugurated,  and  in  1872  the 
observatory  which  was  soon  to  be  famous  in  all  the 
Orient  was  begun.  Progress  was  also  made  at 
Shanghai.  Of  course  the  usual  burnings  and  plunder- 
ings,  with  occasional  massacre  of  groups  of  Christians 
continued,  but  not  much  attention  was  paid  to  these 
disturbances  until  1878,  when  the  Church  at  Nankin 
was  set  on  fire,  and  Sisters  of  Charity,  priests,  and 
Christians  in  general,  among  whom  was  the  French 
consul,  were  all  ruthlessly  murdered.  The  imperial 
government  then  took  cognizance  of  the  outbreak, 
and  eleven  alleged  culprits  were  put  to  death.  That 
helped  to  calm  the  mob,  and  evangelical  work  was 
resumed,  so  that  Kiang-nan,  which  had  70,685 
Christians  in  1866  counted  over  100,000  in  1882. 
In  the  year  1900  there  were  124,000  of  whom  55,171 
were  adults.  There  were  also  50,000  catechumens 
preparing  for  baptism.  The  number  of  priests  had 
grown  to  159,  of  whom  42  were  Chinese.  The  940 
schools  had  an  attendance  of  18,563  children 

The  Boxer  uprising  was  the  most  formidable  trial 
to  which  the  mission  has  so  far  been  subjected.  It  was 
organized  in  the  court  itself  by  Toan,  the  emperor's 
uncle,  General  Tong-Fou-Siang  and  the  secretary  of 
state,  Kangi-i,  and  its  rumblings  were  heard  for  years 
before  the  actual  outbreak.  In  Se-tchouan,  a  third 
of  the  churches  were  destroyed,  villages  set  on  fire, 
missionaries  thrown  into  prison  and  many  Christians 
massacred.  A  priest  and  his  people  were  burned  in 


792  The  Jesuits 

the  church  at  Kouang-toung ;  and  at  Hou-pe,  another 
was  put  to  death.  These  outrages  were  as  yet  local, 
but  there  was  every  evidence  that  a  general  conspiracy 
was  at  work  for  the  expulsion  of  all  foreigners  from 
the  empire.  Finally  the  Boxers,  or  Grand  Sabres, 
declared  themselves,  and  by  order  of  the  viceroy, 
Yu-heen,  360  Christian  villages  were  destroyed.  That 
was  only  a  beginning.  Tche-ly  suffered  most.  It  was 
the  stronghold  of  the  rebels.  In  the  autumn  of  1899 
there  were  conflagrations  and  riots  everywhere.  In 
1900  the  northern  part  of  the  mission  was  in  flames, 
and  forty-five  Christian  centres  were  reduced  to  ashes, 
but  there  were  few,  if  any,  apostacies,  although 
thousands  were  put  to  death  in  the  most  horrible 
fashion.  On  June  20  Fathers  Isore  and  Andlauer 
were  murdered  at  the  altar.  On  July  20  Fathers 
Mangin  and  Denn  were  killed,  and  on  April  26,  1902, 
after  peace  had  been  concluded,  Father  Lomiiller 
with  his  catechist  and  servant  suffered  death. 

In  this  storm,  five  missionaries  had  been  killed; 
Mgr.  Henry  Bulte  died  of  exhaustion;  5,000  Christians 
had  disappeared  from  the  country;  616  churches  had 
been  destroyed  along  with  381  schools  and  three 
colleges.  But  that  the  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed 
of  the  Church  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  there  are 
now  more  Christians  in  the  district  than  there  were 
before  the  persecution.  The  churches  have  been 
rebuilt;  priests  and  catechists  are  more  numerous; 
the  seminary  is  crowded,  and  schools  and  pupils  and 
teachers  are  at  work,  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
The  exact  figures  may  be  found  in  Brou's  "  Jesuites 
missionaires  au  xix  siecle."  Shanghai  and  Zikawei 
form  the  center  of  the  Vicariate  of  Kiang-nan.  In 
Shanghai  are  a  cathedral  and  three  parish  churches 
which  provide  for  a  Catholic  population  of  9,724. 
There  are  three  hospitals;  an  orphanage  with  trade 


Modern  Missions  793 

schools;  six  schools;  a  home  for  the  aged;  conferences 
of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  At  Zikawei  there  is  a  scholas- 
ticate  of  the  Society;  a  grand  and  little  seminary; 
a  meteorological  and  magnetic  observatory;  a  museum 
of  natural  history;  a  college  with  266  students,  of 
whom  105  are  pagans;  a  printing-house;  a  bi-weekly 
publication,  and  the  beginnings  of  a  university  which 
it  is  hoped  will  head  off  the  tendency  of  the  natives 
to  go  for  an  education  to  Japan  or  to  the  Japanese 
schools  founded  in  China  itself. 

When  Gregory  XVI  sent  the  Jesuits  to  China,  it 
was  thought  that  from  there  it  would  be  easy  for  them 
to  go  to  Japan  to  resume  the  work  in  which  they  had 
so  distinguished  themselves  in  former  times.  Eighty 
years  have  passed  since  then,  and  only  lately,  a  few 
Jesuits  have  shown  themselves  in  that  country.  The 
Fathers  of  the  Missions  Etrangeres  have  occupied 
the  ground  and  have  succeeded  in  establishing  a  com- 
plete hierarchy  of  five  bishops  and  have  won  praise 
for  themselves  by  their  work  in  missions  and  parishes, 
in  polemics  and  conferences.  A  school  has  been 
attempted  and  an  American  Jesuit  has  lately  been 
placed  on  the  staff  of  the  University  of  Tokio.  Only 
that  and  nothing  more.  What  the  future  has  in 
store,  who  can  tell? 

It  was  a  happy  day  for  the  new  Society  when  in 
1841  it  was  ordered  by  Gregory  XVI  to  undertake  the 
missions  of  Hindostan;  the  country  sanctified  by  the 
labors  of  Francis  Xavier,  de  Nobili,  de  Britto,  Crim- 
inali  and  a  host  of  other  saintly  missionaries.  No 
work  could  be  more  acceptable.  The  chief  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  success  was  the  protectorate  which 
Portugal  exercised  over  the  churches  of  the  Orient. 
In  Catholic  times  its  kings  had  the  right  not  only  to 
nominate  all  the  bishops  of  the  East,  but  to  legislate 
on  almost  the  entire  ecclesiastical  procedure  within  its 


794  The  Jesuits 

dominions.  Not  even  a  sacristan  could  be  sent  to 
the  Indies  without  the  official  approval  of  the  Portu- 
guese government.  Such  a  state  of  things  was  bad 
enough  in  Catholic  times,  but  when  the  politics  of 
Portugal  were  in  the  hands  of  infidels  and  enemies  of 
the  Church,  it  could  not  possibly  be  tolerated,  no 
matter  how  persistent  was  the  claim  that  the  right 
still  adhered  to  the  crown.  Another  abnormality  in 
the  pretence  was  that  the  country  no  longer  belonged 
to  Portugal  but  was  to  a  very  great  extent  English 
and  hence  if  there  were  to  be  any  dictation  it  should 
come  from  the  government  of  that  country. 

The  first  act  of  the  Pope  was  to  create  a  number  of 
vicars  Apostolic  who  were  to  be  independent  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Goa.  This  started  a  war  which  lasted 
sixty  years.  It  was  called  the  Goanese  schism,  or  the 
fight  of  the  double  jurisdiction.  The  vicar  Apostolic 
of  the  Calcutta  district  was  Robert  St.  Leger,  an 
Irish  Jesuit,  who  came  to  India  with  five  members  of 
the  Society  after  his  appointment  on  15  April,  1834. 
St.  Deger's  jurisdiction  was  disputed  by  a  number  of 
the  adherents  of  Goa  and  he  retired  in  December,  1838. 
The  Jesuits  with  him  had  begun  a  college,  which  was 
enthusiastically  supported  by  his  successor,  Bishop 
Jean-Louis  Taberd.  Unfortunately  he  died  suddenly 
in  1840,  and  the  same  encouragement  was  not  given 
by  Dr.  Patrick  Carew,  the  third  vicar,  with  the  result 
that  the  college  which  had  begun  to  prosper  was 
closed.  In  1846  the  Jesuits  left  Calcutta,  but  in  1860 
they  were  recalled  by  Mgr.  Oliffe,  the  successor  of  Dr. 
Carew. 

The  missionaries  came  under  the  leadership  of 
Father  Depelchin,  who  when  he  had  finished  his  work  in 
Calcutta  was  later  to  add  to  his  glory  by  founding  the 
mission  of  the  Zambesi  in  Africa.  They  found  every- 
thing in  ruins.  Out  of  a  population  of  2,300,000  in 


Modern  Missions  795 

the  city  and  suburbs,  there  were  no  more  than  seven 
or  eight  thousand  Catholics,  many  of  whom  were 
Tamouls  from  Madras.  Only  a  few  of  the  faithful 
were  in  easy  circumstances  and  their  influence  in  the 
city  amounted  to  nothing.  There  was  no  help  for  it, 
therefore,  but  to  resuscitate  the  College  of  St.  Francis 
Xavier,  which  had  been  suppressed  fourteen  years 
before.  It  had  no  furniture  and  its  library  consisted 
of  a  few  books  with  the  covers  off.  The  college  was 
opened  nevertheless  and  had,  on  the  first  day,  eighty 
students  on  the  benches.  When  Bishop  Oliffe  died 
there  was  a  dreadful  possibility  of  the  appointment  of 
a  Goanese  bishop,  which,  for  the  Jesuits,  meant  pack- 
ing up  a  second  time  and  leaving  Calcutta.  An 
appeal  was  therefore  made  to  Rome  and  Father 
Auguste  Van  Heule  was  named,  but  he  died  in  1865 
shortly  after  his  arrival,  and  in  1867,  Bishop  Walter 
Steins  was  called  over  from  Bombay  to  take  his  place. 
By  this  time  the  college  had  350  students;  a  new 
building  and  another  situation  were  imperative,  but 
Depelchin  was  equal  to  the  task,  and  before  he  left 
Calcutta  for  Africa  he  had  500  students  on  the  roster. 

The  initial  work  of  the  missionaries  was  the  develop- 
ment of  the  colleges  but  they  subsequently  addressed 
themselves  to  the  evangelization  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  the  city  and  suburbs,  and  to-day  they  have 
six  parishes  with  a  population  of  13,000  souls,  who  are 
provided  with  schools,  hospitals,  asylums  and  the 
like.  The  native  population,  the  Bengalis  as  they  are 
called,  were  found  to  be  hopeless.  Contact  with  the 
whites  has  made  them  skeptical  in  religion,  and  morally 
worse  than  they  had  been  originally.  The  only 
Christian  Hindoos  in  Calcutta  are  Tamouls  from 
the  South. 

Not  finding  the  Bengalis  apt  for  evangelization, 
they  sought  out  their  countrymen,  the  Ourias  in  the 


796  The  Jesuits 

Delta  of  the  Ganges.  Their  home  had  the  unhappy 
distinction  of  being  called  "  the  famine  district," 
the  dreadful  calamity  being  caused  either  by  too 
much  water  or  by  none.  In  1866  there  was  a  drought 
that  withered  all  the  crops,  and  then  came  inundations 
that  covered  68,000  acres  of  land,  swept  away  hundreds 
of  villages,  and  diminished  the  population  by  half  a 
million.  Orphans,  of  course,  abounded,  and  in  1868 
an  asylum  was  built  for  them  in  Balasore,  which  served 
also  as  an  evangelical  centre  for  missionary  expeditions 
into  the  interior.  But  this  venture  was  not  very  suc- 
cessful, for  only  about  1,600  conversions  resulted  after 
years  of  hard  labor.  The  Ourias,  it  was  found,  had 
all  the  bad  qualities  of  their  friends  the  Bengalis. 
Perhaps  also  the  movement  was  halted  because  their 
territory  was  a  sort  of  Holy  Land  for  Hindooism. 
Every  year  500,000  pilgrims  arrived  there  to  pray  at 
the  shrine  of  Vishnu,  and  idolatry  of  all  kinds,  from 
the  bloody  ancestral  fetichism  to  the  refined  cult  of 
the  Vedas  and  undiluted  Brahmanism,  took  root  and 
flourished  there.  Hence  a  mission  was  begun  among 
the  Orissas  still  further  south. 

Better  than  anywhere  else  one  can  see  at  close  range 
among  the  Ourias  how  formidable  are  the  moral, 
intellectual,  social  and  historical  obstacles  that  oppose 
the  progress  of  Christianity  in  Hindostan.  To  add 
to  the  difficulty,  Protestantism  with  its  jumble  of 
sects  had  established  itself  there  and  claimed  at  this 
time  15,000  adherents.  But  when  cholera  swept  over 
the  land  in  1868,  the  Protestant  missionaries  fled  and 
many  of  the  native  converts  came  over  to  the  priests 
who,  of  course,  did  not  imitate  their  non-Catholic  rivals 
in  deserting  their  charges.  Father. Goffinet  especially 
distinguished  himself  in  this  instance,  going  everywhere 
in  his  narrow  canoe  and  lavishing  spiritual  and  corporal 
aid  on  the  victims.  In  1873  ne  was  joined  by  Father 


Modern  Missions  797 

Delplace,  who  went  still  nearer  the  sea.  Others 
followed,  lived  in  the  huts  of  the  natives,  satisfied  their 
hunger  with  a  few  handfuls  of  rice  varied  by  a  fish  on 
Sundays  to  break  the  monotony  of  the  diet,  with  the 
result  that,  in  three  years,  there  were  thirty  Catholic 
missions  between  the  Hoogly  and  the  Mutlah  with 
3,000  converts  in  what  had  been  previously  a  strong- 
hold of  Hindoo  Protestantism. 

In  the  same  year,  Father  Schoff  went  north  of  Cal- 
cutta to  Bard  wan  — "  The  Garden  of  Western  Bengal." 
He  kept  away  from  the  rich,  and  devoted  himself  to  the 
dregs  of  the  populace.  Over  and  over  again  the 
superiors  doubted  if  it  were  worth  while,  but  to-day 
the  Haris,  who  were  previously  so  degraded,  live  in 
pretty  villages,  and  the  order,  piety  and  honesty  for 
which  they  are  noted  make  one  forget  the  ignorance, 
debauchery  and  dishonesty  of  the  past.  A  group  of 
over  5,000  Catholics  may  be  found  there  at  the  present 
time. 

In  these  parts,  the  caste  system  prevails  in  all  its 
vigors  but  if  you  go  still  further  west  into  the  heart  of 
the  Province  of  Chota-Nagpur  you  come  upon  a  half- 
savage  people,  the  offscouring  of  humanity  who  have 
been  driven  into  the  hills  and  forests  by  the  conquering 
Aryans  of  the  plains.  They  are  the  Ouraons  of 
Dravidian  origin;  small,  black  as  negroes,  filthy, 
often  wrapped  in  cow-dung  and  tattooed  all  over  the 
body,  but  nevertheless  light-hearted,  robust  and  proud 
of  their  ability  to  perform  hard  work.  With  them  also 
lives  a  more  ancient  race  known  as  the  Koles:  men 
of  broad  flat  faces  which  recall  the  Mongolian  type. 
They  are  probably  the  aborigines.  Their  religion  is 
grossly  elementary  —  a  vague  adoration  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  superstition  and  ancestor  worship;  but  with  a 
shade  of  the  pride  that  characterizes  the  horrible  caste 
system  of  the  Hindoos.  The  German  Lutherans  had 


798  The  Jesuits 

essayed  to  convert  them.  Fifty  rupees  were  paid  for 
each  adhesion,  and  fifty  ministers  devoted  themselves 
to  this  apostolate.  They  are  credited  with  having  dis- 
bursed 3,700,000  francs  by  the  year  1876.  Then  came 
the  Anglicans  who  claimed  40,000  of  them.  In  1869 
Father  Stockman  arrived  and  opened  a  mission  at 
Chaibassa.  In  1873  ne  nacl  only  a  group  of  thirty 
converts.  Nine  years  later,  he  had  succeeded  in 
baptising  only  273,  but  by  1885  there  were  four 
residences  in  Chota-Nagpur  with  one  out-mission. 
Five  priests  were  engaged  in  the  task. 

The  progress  of  the  work,  however,  was  compara- 
tively slow  until  the  young  Father  Constant  Lievens 
made  himself  the  champion  of  the  natives  in  the  courts. 
This  gave  it  a  phenomenal  impulse.  For  years,  these 
poor  mountaineers  had  been  cruelly  exploited  by 
Hindoo  traders  from  Calcutta.  As  soon  as  the  natives 
had  contrived  to  cultivate  a  bit  of  land  they  were 
loaded  down  with  taxes  and  enforced  contributions, 
haled  before  the  magistrates  and  flung  into  jail  to  rot. 
Unfortunately  the  police  regulations  were  all  in  favor 
of  the  aggressors.  Hence  there  were  incessant  riots 
and  massacres,  and  when  the  English  authorities 
tried  in  good  faith  to  remedy  matters,  they  could 
find  no  one  among  these  poor  outcasts  fit  to  hold  any 
position  of  responsibility.  The  Lutherans  presented 
themselves  and  promised  protection  for  those  who  would 
join  the  sect,  and  many  went  over  to  them,  but  the 
government  disapproved  of  these  unworthy  tactics,  as 
calculated  only  to  make  things  worse  in  the  end. 
It  was  like  the  temptation  on  the  mountain. 

At  this  point  Father  Lievens  stepped  into  the  breach. 
He  could  speak  all  the  languages:  Bengali,  Hindoo, 
Mundari  and  Ouraon;  and  he  then  plunged  into  a 
study  of  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  land ;  an  appar- 
ently inextricable  maze,  but  in  less  than  a  year  he  was 


Modern  Missions  799 

master  of  the  whole  legal  procedure  then  in  force. 
Thus  armed,  he  appeared  in  court  whenever  a  victim 
was  arraigned,  and  almost  invariably  won  a  verdict  in 
his  favor.  His  reputation  spread,  and  the  victims  of 
the  sharks  flocked  to  him  from  all  sides.  He  argued 
for  all  of  them,  without  however,  omitting  his  minis- 
terial occupation  of  preaching,  teaching,  composing 
canticles,  helping  the  needy,  and  seeking  out  souls 
everywhere.  He  cut  out  so  much  work  for  his  associates 
that  his  superiors  were  in  a  panic.  But  he  succeeded. 
The  native  Protestants  came  over  in  crowds,  and 
there  was  a  flood  tide  of  conversions  to  the  Faith. 
It  cost  him  his  life,  indeed,  for  he  died  in  1892,  overcome 
by  his  labors  and  privations,  but  he  had  started  a  great 
movement  and  two  years  after  his  death,  the  flock 
had  grown  from  16,000  to  61,312,  with  more  than  2,566 
catechumens  preparing  for  baptism.  To-day  the  dis- 
trict is  absolutely  unlike  its  former  self.  Sacred 
canticles  have  taken  the  place  of  the  old  pagan  chants 
and  immoral  dances  are  unknown.  Even  the  pagans 
who  are  in  the  majority  do  not  dare  to  perform  certain 
rites  of  theirs  in  public. 

In  a  district  of  Chota-Nagpur  other  than  that  in 
which  Lievens  labored,  the  conversions  are  still  more 
pronounced.  Six  missionaries  are  at  work,  and  their 
catechumens  number  more  than  25,000.  They  offered 
themselves  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Rajah  was  in 
a  rage  with  his  subjects  about  it;  beat  many  of  them 
unmercifully,  and  flung  them  into  jail.  Indeed  the 
English  government  had  to  intervene  to  stop  him. 
If  there  were  a  sufficiency  of  priests,  there  would  be 
no  difficulty  in  converting  the  whole  countryside. 
The  last  accounts  available  tell  us  that  the  inhabitants 
of  fifteen  villages  have  declared  themselves  Christians, 
and  cut  off  their  hair  to  let  the  world  know  that  they 
have  renounced  idolatry.  Fifty  years  ago  there  were 


800  The  Jesuits 

in  all  Western  Bengal  only  a  few  thousand  Catholics. 
In  1904  there  were  106,000;  in  the  following  year, 
119,705;  in  1906,  126,529.  Chota-Nagpur  alone  has 
another  102,000  and  the  number  could  be  doubled  if 
twenty  new  missionaries  were  on  the  spot.  Western 
Bengal  has  now  27  churches,  346  chapels,  124  schools 
and  two  great  colleges.  Working  there,  are  101  priests, 
55  scholastics  and  27  coadjutor  brothers  of  the  Society, 
along  with  34  Christian  Brothers  and  158  Sisters. 

When  Bishop  Steins  left  Bombay,  his  successor 
Mgr.  Jean-Gabriel  Meurin  built  the  college  already 
planned,  and  called  it  St.  Francis  Xavier's.  The 
undertaking  was  a  difficult  one,  for  the  schismatical 
Goanese  numbered  40,000  out  of  the  60,000  Catholics 
in  the  city,  and  their  ecclesiastical  leaders  were  not 
only  indifferent  to  the  project  but  refused  to  contrib- 
ute anything  to  carry  it  out,  just  as  if  it  had  been  a 
Moslem  or  a  heretical  establishment.  The  people, 
however,  were  better  minded.  Every  one,  Catholic, 
heathen  and  heretic,  was  eager  to  build  the  college, 
for  Bombay  was  proud  of  being  a  great  intellectual 
centre ;  and  hence  when  the  government  promised  to 
double  what  could  be  collected,  the  enthusiasm  was 
general  and  money  poured  in.  The  Observatory  still 
bears  the  name  of  the  rich  Parsee  who  built  it. 

The  Bombay  mission  included  Beluchistan  up  to 
the  frontiers  of  Afghanistan;  its  southern  limit  was 
the  Diocese  of  Poona.  In  this  vast  territory  were 
native  villages,  military  posts,  Anglo-Indian  settle- 
ments, Indo-Portuguese,  and  pure  Hindoos.  There 
were  only  about  33,000  Christians  to  be  found  in 
this  amalgam,  excluding  the  70,000  people  of  the 
Goanese  allegiance.  Four  colleges  were  erected  in 
the  various  districts  of  this  territory,  but,  unlike  the 
great  establishments  of  Bombay  and  Calcutta,  they 
were  exclusively  Catholic.  They  gave  instructions 


Modern  Missions  801 

respectively  to  500,  690,  298,  and  306  pupils.  The 
girls  of  the  two  dioceses  were  also  provided  for  and  the 
high  school  population  exceeded  10,000.  The  great 
advantage  of  this  scheme  was  that  it  ate  very  rapidly 
into  the  schism  through  the  children  of  the  insur- 
gents. 

The  Carmelites  had  been  in  Mangalore;  but  found 
it  too  hard  to  hold  out  against  the  Calvinists  from 
Bale  who,  in  1880  had  twenty  stations,  sixty-five 
schools  and  an  annual  budget  of  half  a  million;  conse- 
quently they  begged  the  Holy  See  to  call  in  the  Jesuits. 
When  the  new  missionaries  arrived  in  December,  1879, 
the  Carmelites  went  out  to  meet  them  in  a  ship  hung 
with  flags  and  bunting  and,  on  landing,  presented  them 
to  the  enthusiastic  multitude  waiting  on  the  shore. 
The  college  of  St.  Aloysius  was  immediately  begun  and 
opened  its  classes  with  150  students.  Thus  it  happened 
that  the  greatest  part  of  St.  Francis  Xavier's  territory 
had  come  back  to  the  Society;  German  Jesuits  being 
in  Bombay,  Belgians  in  Calcutta,  French  in  Madura 
and  Italians  in  Mangalore.  In  the  latter  mission 
out  of  a  population  of  3,685,000  there  are  to-day  only 
93,000  Catholics,  but  there  were  1,500  Christian 
students  in  St.  Aloysius'  college  in  1920.  It  might  be 
noted  that  Mangalore  has  acquired  a  world  wide 
reputation  for  its  leper  hospital  which  was  founded 
by  Father  Muller,  formerly  of  the  New  York  province. 
In  that  district  also  there  are  more  native  priests  than 
in  any  other  part  of  India.  They  number  60  all  told 
and  take  care  of  about  32  parishes.  They  are  not 
pure-blood,  however,  for  they  bear  distinctively  Portu- 
guese names,  such  as  Coelho,  Fernandes,  Saldanha 
and  Pinto.  This  growth  of  the  native  clergy  is  encour- 
aging, but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  them  as 
useful  for  spreading  the  Faith.  They  make  relatively 
very  few  conversions.  They  leave  that  to  outsiders. 
51 


802  The  Jesuits 

They  merely  hold  on  to  what  has  been  won  for  them 
by  others. 

In  1884,  the  college  of  Negapatam  was  transferred  to 
Trichinopoly,  the  reason  being  that  in  the  latter  there 
was  a  Catholic  population  of  20,000.  Of  course,  the 
Anglican  educators  of  the  city  tried  to  prevent  the 
move  but  failed.  The  college  at  one  time  had  1,800 
pupils,  and  although  there  was  a  drop  to  1,550  in  1905, 
because  of  new  rivals  in  the  field,  the  latest  accounts 
place  the  attendance  at  2,562.  St.  Xavier's  high 
school  in  Tuticorin,  in  the  Madura  mission  had  563 
pupils  in  1920,  and  St.  Mary's  erected  in  1910  in  the 
very  heart  of  Brahmanism  has  441.  In  Trichinopoly, 
the  discipline  and  work  of  the  students  have  attracted 
much  attention,  but  especially  the  enterprise  of  the 
sodalists,  who  have  formed  twenty  groups  of  catechists 
and  are  engaged  in  giving  religious  instruction  to  700 
children.  Most  notable,  however,  is  the  success  of 
the  college  in  overthrowing  the  caste  barriers.  Indeed 
the  missionaries  of  the  old  days  would  look  with  amaze- 
ment at  the  grouping  in  the  class  rooms  of  Brahmins, 
Vellalans,  Odeayans,  Kalians,  Paravers  and  twenty 
other  social  divisions  down  to  the  very  Pariahs,  all 
studying  in  the  same  house  and  eating  at  the  same 
table.  There  were  walled  divisions,  at  first;  then 
screens;  then  benches,  and  now  there  is  only  an 
imaginary  line  between  the  grades  which  formerly 
could  not  come  near  each  other  without  contamination. 

Among  these  castes,  the  Brahmins  display  the 
greatest  curiosity  about  things  Christian,  but  like  the 
rich  young  man  in  the  Gospel  when  they  hear  the 
truth  they  turn  sadly  away.  "  Why  did  God  permit 
me  to  meet  you,"  said  one  of  them,  "  if  I  am  going  to 
suffer  both  here  and  hereafter?"  One  of  them  at  last 
yielded  and  took  flight  to  the  ecclesiastical  seminary 
at  Ceylon.  When  the  news  spread  abroad,  priests 


Modern  Missions  803 

from  the  pagodas  and  professors  from  the  national 
schools  came  to  the  college  and  stormed  against  the 
other  catechumens  but  without  avail.  Another 
Brahmin  declared  himself  a  Christian  the  next  year; 
three  in  1896,  three  in  1897,  four  in  1898,  six  in  1899 
and  two  in  1900.  They  all  have  a  hard  fight  before 
them;  for  they  are  thrown  out  of  their  caste  and  are 
disinherited  by  their  families.  Two  of  these  con- 
verts died,  and  there  is  a  suspicion  that  at  least  one 
was  poisoned.  Already  60  Brahmins  have  been  bap- 
tized and  India  is  in  an  uproar  about  it.  To  those  who 
know  the  country,  these  conversions  are  of  more 
importance  than  that  of  a  thousand  ordinary  people 
and  it  is  almost  amusing  to  learn  that  the  well-known 
theosophist  leader,  Annie  Besant,  hastened  back  to 
India  to  denounce  the  Catholic  Church  for  its  effrontery. 
The  incident,  it  is  true,  gave  a  new  life  to  idol-worship 
but  possibly  it  was  the  last  gasp  before  death. 

The  Madura  district  had  been  taken  over  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  Foreign  Missions,  after  the  Jesuits  had 
been  suppressed  in  1773.  When  the  Pope,  Pius  VII, 
re-established  the  Society,  insistent  appeals  were 
made  by  those  devoted  and  overtaxed  missionaries 
to  have  the  Jesuits  resume  their  old  place  in  that  part 
of  the  Peninsula.  The  petition  was  heeded  and  the 
Jesuits  returned  to  Madura  in  1837.  They  were  con- 
fronted by  a  frightful  condition  of  affairs.  In  spite 
of  the  heroic  labors  of  their  immediate  predecessors, 
there  were  scandals  innumerable,  and  a  large  part 
of  the  population  had  lapsed  into  the  grossest  super- 
stition and  idolatry.  The  missionaries  were  well 
received  at  first,  but  a  fulmination  from  Goa  incited 
the  people  to  rebellion.  Moreover  their  labors  were 
so  crushing  that  four  of  the  Fathers  died  of  exhaustion 
in  the  year  1843  alone.  Little  by  little  however  a 
change  of  feeling  began  to  manifest  itself,  and  as  early 


804  The  Jesuits 

as  1842,  there  were  118,400  Catholics  in  the  mission, 
many  of  them  converts  from  Protestantism  and 
paganism.  In  1847  Madura  was  made  a  vicariate 
Apostolic  under  Mgr.  Alexis  Canoz,  a  year  after  the 
Hindo-European  college  was  established  at  Negapatam. 

Madura  has  another  great  achievement  to  its  credit. 
The  English  government  had  put  an  end  to  the  suttee: 
the  frightful  and  compulsory  custom  of  widows  flinging 
themselves  on  the  funeral  pyres  of  their  husbands 
who  were  being  incinerated.  The  prohibition  was 
universally  applauded  but  the  Fathers  started  another 
movement.  It  was  against  the  enforced  celibacy  of 
widows,  some  of  whom  had  been  married  in  babyhood, 
often  to  some  old  man,  and  were  consequently  obliged 
to  live  a  single  life  after  his  death.  The  moral  results 
of  such  a  custom  may  be  imagined.  It  was  difficult 
at  first  to  convince  a  convert  that  it  was  a  perfectly 
proper  thing  for  him  to  marry  a  widow,  but  little  by 
little  the  prejudice  was  removed.  Of  course  there  are 
orphanages,  old  people's  homes,  Magdalen  asylums, 
maternity  hospitals,  industrial  schools,  and  other 
charitable  institutions  in  prosperous  Madura. 

The  work  among  the  lower  classes  in  the  country 
districts  is  of  the  most  trying  description.  There  is 
no  place  for  the  itinerant  missionary  to  find  shelter  in 
the  villages  except  in  some  miserable  hut.  Indeed, 
1,853  °f  these  hamlets  out  of  2,035  have  no  accommo- 
dations at  all  for  the  priest,  who  perhaps  has  travelled 
for  days  through  forests  to  visit  them.  Moreover, 
though  the  people  have  their  good  qualities  and  a  great 
leaning  to  religion,  they  are  fickle,  excitable,  ungrate- 
ful, unmindful  as  children  at  times,  and  hard  to  manage. 
In  certain  quarters,  especially  in  the  south,  conversions 
are  multiplying  daily.  The  movement  began  as  early 
as  1876,  after  a  frightful  famine  that  swept  the  country, 
and  in  one  place  the  Christian  population  grew  in 


Modern  Missions  805 

fifteen  years  from  4,800  to  68,000.  In  1889  around 
Tuticorin  whole  villages  came  over  in  a  body.  In 
December,  1891.  600  people  were  clamoring  for  baptism 
in  one  place,  and  they  represented  a  dozen  different 
castes.  In  1891  one  missionary  was  compelled  to  erect 
thirty- two  new  chapels.  "  I  said  we  have  75  new 
villages;  "  writes  another,  "if  we  had  priests  enough 
we  could  have  75  more." 

In  1920,  there  were  in  the  Diocese  of  Trichinopoly 
besides  the  bishop,  Mgr.  Augustine  Faisandier,  119 
Jesuit  priests  of  whom  28  are  natives.  There  are 
a  number  of  native  scholastics.  Besides  this  group 
there  are  27  natives  studying  philosophy  and  theology 
in  the  seminary  at  Kandy.  Add  to  this  32  Brothers 
of  the  Sacred  Heart,  an  institute  of  Indian  lay  religious, 
who  assist  the  missionaries  as  catechists  and  school 
teachers;  75  nuns  in  European  and  346  in  Indian 
institutions;  and  75  oblates  or  pious  women  who 
devote  themselves  to  the  baptizing  of  heathen  children ; 
and  you  have  some  of  the  working  corps  in  this  pros- 
perous mission.  The  Catholic  population  was  267,772 
in  1916.  There  are  1,100  churches  and  chapels,  2,620 
posts,  a  school  attendance  of  27,378  children,  and 
7  Catholic  periodicals. 

The  missions  in  Mohammedan  countries  were 
particularly  difficult  to  handle,  because  Turkey  is  a 
veritable  Babel  of  races,  languages  and  religions.  There 
are  Turks,  and  Syrians,  and  Egyptians  and  Arabians, 
along  with  the  Metualis  of  Mount  Lebanon  and  the 
Bedouins  of  the  desert.  There  are  Druses,  who  have 
a  slender  link  holding  them  to  Islamism;  there  are 
idolaters  of  every  stripe;  there  are  Schismatical  Greeks, 
who  call  themselves  Orthodox  and  depend  on  Con- 
stantinople; and  there  are  United  Greeks  or  Melchites 
who  submit  to  Rome;  Monophysite  Armenians,  and 
Armenian  Catholics;  and  Copts  also  of  the  same 


806  The  Jesuits 

divided  allegiance.  Then  come  Syrian  Jacobites  and 
United  Syrians,  Nestorians,  Chaldeans,  Maronites, 
Latins,  Russians,  with  English,  German  and  American 
Protestants,  and  to  end  all,  the  ubiquitous  Jews. 
The  missionaries  who  labor  in  this  chaos  are  also  of 
every  race  and  wear  every  kind  of  religious  garb. 
What  will  be  the  result  of  the  changes  consequent  upon 
the  World  War  no  one  can  foretell.  There  is  nothing 
to  hope  for  from  the  Jews  or  Mohammedans;  and  only 
a  very  slight  possibility  of  uniting  the  schismatics  to 
Rome,  or  of  converting  the  Protestants  who  have 
nothing  to  build  on  but  sentiment  and  ingrained  and 
inveterate  prejudice.  There  is  plenty  to  do,  however, 
in  restraining  Catholics  from  rationalism  and  heresy; 
in  lifting  up  the  clergy  to  their  proper  level,  by  imparting 
to  them  science  and  piety;  forming  priests  and  bishops 
for  the  Uniates;  promoting  a  love  for  the  Chair  of 
Peter;  and  all  the  while  not  only  not  hurting  Uniate 
susceptibilities,  but  showing  the  greatest  respect  for 
the  jealous  autonomy  of  each  Oriental  Church. 

Before  the  Suppression,  the  missions  of  the  Levant 
were  largely  entrusted  to  the  Jesuits  of  the  province 
of  Lyons.  The  alliance  of  the  Grand  Turk  with  the 
kings  of  France  assured  the  safety  of  the  missionaries 
and  hence  there  were  stations  not  only  at  Constanti- 
nople, but  in  Roumelia,  Anatolia,  Armenia,  Mingrelia, 
Crimea,  Persia,  Syria,  Egypt  and  in  the  Islands  of 
the  yEgean  Sea.  The  work  of  predilection  in  all  these 
places  was  toiling  in  the  galleys  with  the  convicts,  or 
in  the  lazar  houses  with  the  plague-stricken.  Between 
1587  and  1773,  more  than  100  Jesuit  missionaries 
died  of  the  pest.  In  1816,  that  is  two  years  after  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Society,  the  bishops  of  the 
Levant  petitioned  Rome  to  send  back  the  Jesuits. 
Thanks  to  Paul  of  Russia,  they  had  resumed  their 
old  posts  in  1805  in  the  ^Egean,  where  one  of  the 


Modern  Missions  807 

former  Jesuits,  named  Mortellaro,  had  remained  as 
a  secular  priest,  and  lived  long  enough  to  have  one  of 
the  Fathers  from  Russia  receive  his  last  sigh  and  hear 
him  renew  his  religious  vows.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  the  present  Sicilian  Jesuit  missions  in  the  Archipelago. 
The  Galician  province  has  four  stations  in  Moravia, 
and  the  Venitian  has  posts  in  Albania  and  Dalmatia. 

In  1831  Gregory  XVI  ordered  the  Society  to  under- 
take the  missions  of  Syria;  but  at  that  time  Mehemet 
AH  of  Egypt  was  at  war  with  the  Sultan,  and  the 
Druses  and  Maronites  were  butchering  each  other  at 
will.  Finally,  in  the  name  of  the  Sultan,  Emir 
Haidar  invited  the  Fathers  to  begin  a  mission  at 
Bekfaya  on  the  west  slope  of  Mount  Lebanon  and 
about  10  miles  west  of  Beirut.  Simultaneously  Emir 
Beckir,  who  was  an  upholder  of  Egypt,  established 
them  at  Muallakah,  a  suburb  of  Zahl6  on  the  other 
side  of  the  mountain.  At  Hauran,  on  the  borders 
of  the  desert,  they  found  a  Christian  population  in  the 
midst  of  Druses  and  Bedouins.  They  were  despised, 
ill-treated  and  virtually  enslaved.  They  had  no 
churches  and  no  priests,  were  in  absolute  ignorance 
of  their  duties  as  Christians,  and  were  stupefied  to 
find  that  Rome  had  come  so  far  to  seek  them.  The 
work  of  lifting  them  up  was  hard  enough,  but  it  was 
a  trying  task  to  be  commissioned  by  Rome  to  settle 
the  disputes  that  were  continually  arising  between 
Christian,  Orthodox,  and  Turk,  and  even  between 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  Father  Planchet  was  the 
chief  pacificator  in  all  these  wrangles,  and  for  his 
punishment  was  made  delegate  Apostolic  in  1850, 
consecrated  Bishop  of  Mossul  in  1853,  and  murdered 
in  1859  when  about  to  set  out  for  Rome. 

Father  Planchet  was  a  Frenchman;  with  Father 
Riccadonna,  an  Italian,  and  Brother  Henze,  a  Han- 
overian, he  went  to  Syria  in  1831,  at  the  joint  request 


808  The  Jesuits 

of  the  Melchite  bishop,  Muzloum,  Joseph  Assemani, 
the  procurator  of  the  Maronite  patriarch  and  the 
Maronite  Archbishop  of  Aleppo,  Germanus  Harva. 
A  hitherto  unpublished  document  recently  edited 
by  Father  Jullien  in  "  La  Nouvelle  Mission  en  Syrie  " 
gives  a  detailed  account  of  the  journey  of  this  illus- 
trious trio  from  Leghorn  to  Syria. 

"  The  vessel  was  called  '  The  Will  of  God,'  and  the 
voyage  was,"  says  Riccadonna  "  an  uninterrupted 
series  of  misfortunes, —  fevers,  faintings,  rotten  water, 
broken  rigging,  shattered  masts,  wild  seas,  frightful 
tempests,  a  sea-sick  crew  and  escapes  from  English, 
Turkish  and  other  cruisers  on  the  high  seas.  When 
they  came  ashore  the  cholera  was  raging  throughout 
the  country."  The  narrative  is  full  of  interest  with 
its  picturesque  descriptions  of  the  people,  their  habita- 
tions, their  festivals,  their  caravans,  their  filth,  their 
fanaticism  and  the  continually  recurring  massacres  of 
Christians.  The  travellers  journeyed  to  Beirut  and 
Qamar  and  Bagdad  and  Damascus,  and  give  vivid 
pictures  of  the  conditions  that  met  them  in  those 
early  days.  The  medical  ability  of  the  lay-brother 
was  of  great  service.  He  was  the  only  physician  in 
the  country,  with  the  result  that,  according  to  Ricca- 
donna, each  stopping  place  was  a  probatica  piscina, 
every  one  striving  to  reach  him  first.  "  In  Arabia," 
says  the  Relation,  "as  in  the  plains  of  Ba'albek,  there 
is  nothing  but  ignorance  and  sin.  There  are  sorcerers 
and  sorceresses  in  every  village;  superstitions  of  every 
kind,  lies,  blasphemies,  perjury  and  impurity  prevail. 
It  is  a  common  thing  for  Christians  to  bear  Mussulman 
names  and  to  pray  to  Mahomet.  They  never  fast, 
and  on  feast  days  never  go  to  Mass.  Of  spiritual 
books  or  the  sacraments  they  know  nothing ;  clan  and 
personal  vengeance  and  murder  are  common,  and 


Modern  Missions  809 

sexual  immorality  indescribable."  Such  was  the  state 
of  these  countries  in  1831. 

In  1843  the  mission,  which  until  then  depended  on 
the  general,  was  handed  to  the  province  of  Lyons.  In 
that  year  a  seminary  for  native  priests  was  begun  at 
Ghazir,  in  an  old  abandoned  castle  bought  from  an 
emir  of  the  mountains.  It  began  with  two  students, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  year  there  were  twenty-five 
on  the  benches,  and  in  that  small  number,  many 
Rites  were  represented.  A  college  for  boys  soon  grew 
up  around  it,  and  a  religious  community  of  native 
nuns  for  the  education  of  children  was  established. 
The  latest  account  credits  the  Sisters  with  nearly 
4,000  pupils. 

New  posts  were  established  at  Zahle  and  ancient 
Sidon  and  also  at  Deir  el  Qamar.  The  prospects 
seemed  fair  for  the  moment,  for  had  not  the  French 
and  Turks  been  companions  in  arms  in  the  Crimea? 
But  in  1860  the  terrible  massacres  in  Syria  began  as 
a  protest  of  the  ultra-Mussulmans  against  the  liberal 
concession  of  Constantinople  to  the  Christians.  In 
the  long  list  of  victims  the  Jesuits  counted  for  something; 
for  on  June  18,  four  of  them  were  butchered  at  Zahle 
and  a  fifth  at  Deir  el  Qamar.  In  that  slaughter 
eight  thousand  Christians  were  killed;  560  churches 
destroyed ;  three  hundred  and  sixty  villages  devastated 
and  forty-two  convents  burned.  Three  months  later 
the  Turkish  troops  from  the  garrison  at  Damascus 
butchered  eight  thousand  five  hundred  people,  four 
prelates,  fifty  Syrian  priests,  and  all  the  Franciscan 
Friars  in  the  city.  They  levelled  to  the  ground 
three  thousand  eight  hundred  houses  and  two  churches, 
and  would  have  done  more;  but  the  slaughter  was 
stopped  when  the  Algerian  Abd-el-Kader  arrived  on 
the  scene.  They  still  live  on  a  volcano.  Preceding 


810  The  Jesuits 

and  during  the  war  of  1914,  massacre  of  the  Christians 
continued  as  usual. 

Armenia  is  the  Ararat  of  Scripture.  Little  Armenia, 
in  which  the  Jesuits  are  laboring,  is  an  irregular  strip 
of  territory  that  starts  from  the  Gulf  of  Alexandretta 
and  continues  on  towards  the  Black  Sea.  Its  principal 
towns  are  Adana,  Caesarea,  Civas,  Tokat,  Amasia,  and 
Marswan,  about  two  or  three  days'  journey  from  each 
other.  The  country  is  mountainous,  without  rail- 
roads or  other  means  of  transport.  The  highways  are 
infested  with  brigands;  and  the  climate  is  excessively 
hot  and  excessively  cold.  The  difficulties  with  which 
the  Church  has  to  contend  in  this  inhospitable  region 
are  first,  the  government  which  is  Turkish;  second, 
the  secret  societies  which  are  continually  plotting 
against  their  Turkish  masters;  and  third,  the  American 
Protestant  sects  which  are  covering  the  country  with 
churches,  orphan  asylums,  schools  and  dispensaries, 
and  flooding  it  with  anti-Catholic  literature,  and  money. 
In  1886  all  the  schools  were  closed  by  the  Turks,  but 
when  the  French  protested  they  were  reopened.  In 
1894  two  of  the  priests  died  while  caring  for  the  cholera 
victims  and  that  helped  to  spread  the  Faith,  for,  of 
course,  there  are  never  any  parsons  on  the  scene  in 
such  calamities.  Under  Turkish  rule  also,  massacres 
are  naturally  chronic,  but  Brou  informs  us  that  on 
such  occasions  the  Protestants  suffer  more  than  the 
Catholics;  for  the  latter  are  not  suspected  of  being  in 
the  secret  revolutionary  societies,  while  the  others  are 
known  to  be  deeply  involved. 

The  population  of  this  region  consists  of  500,000 
Christians,  of  whom  14,000  are  Protestants  and  12,000 
Catholics.  The  rest  are  Monophysite  schismatics. 
In  the  mission  besides  the  secular  priests  there  are 
57  Jesuits  and  50  teaching  sisters  from  France.  There 
are  22  schools  with  3,309  pupils,  but  only  504  of  these 


Modern  Missions  811 

children  are  Uniate  Catholics.  They  are  what  are 
called  Gregorians,  for  the  tradition  is  that  Armenia 
was  converted  to  the  Faith  by  St.  Gregory  the  Illumi- 
nator. There  are  few  conversions,  but  the  schismatics 
accept  whatever  Catholic  truth  is  imparted  to  them. 
They  believe  in  the  Immaculate  Conception;  pray  for 
the  dead;  love  the  Pope;  say  their  beads;  and  invoke 
the  Sacred  Heart.  For  them  the  difference  between 
Romans  and  Gregorians  is  merely  a  matter  of  ritual. 
In  several  places,  however,  whole  villages  have  asked 
to  be  received  into  Roman  unity.  As  a  people  they 
look  mainly  to  Russia  for  deliverance  from  the 
Turk,  but  neither  Turk  nor  Russian  now  counts 
in  the  world's  politics  and  no  one  can  foresee  the 
future. 

Father  Roothaan  had  long  been  dreaming  of  sending 
missionaries  to  what  until  very  recently  has  been  called 
the  Unknown  or  Dark  Continent,  Africa.  Hence 
when  the  authorities  of  the  Propaganda  spoke  to  him 
of  a  proposition,  made  by  an  ecclesiastic  of  admitted 
probity,  about  establishing  a  mission  there,  Roothaan 
accepted  it  immediately,  and  in  the  year  1846  ordered 
Father  Maximilian  Ryllo  with  three  companions  to 
ascend  the  Nile  as  far  as  possible  and  report  on  the 
conditions  of  the  country.  Ryllo  was  born  in  Russia 
in  1802  and  entered  the  Roman  province  in  1820. 
After  many  years  of  missionary  work  in  Syria,  Malta 
and  Sicily  he  was  made  rector  of  the  Urban  College  in 
Rome  on  July  4,  1844,  and  was  occupying  that  post 
when  he  was  sent  by  Father  Roothaan  to  the  new 
mission  of  Central  Africa. 

In  1845  Ryllo  was  at  Alexandria  in  search  of  "  the 
eminent  personage  "  who  had  suggested  the  mission 
and  had  been  consecrated  bishop  in  partibus,  for  the 
purpose  of  advancing  the  enterprise.  But  the  "  emi- 
nent personage  "  was  not  to  be  found  either  there  or 


812  The  Jesuits 

in  Cairo.  Hence  after  waiting  in  vain  for  a  month, 
Ryllo  and  his  companions  started  for  Khartoum 
which  was  to  be  the  central  point  for  future  explora- 
tions. After  a  little  rest,  they  made  their  way  up  the 
White  Nile.  They  were  then  under  the  equator,  and 
had  scant  provisions  for  the  journey,  and  no  means  of 
protection  from  the  terrible  heat,  and,  besides,  they 
were  in  constant  peril  of  the  crocodiles  which  infested 
the  shores  of  the  river.  The  first  negro  tribes  they 
met  spoke  an  Arabic  dialect,  so  it  was  easy  to 
understand  them.  The  native  houses  were  caves  in 
the  hillsides,  a  style  of  dwelling  that  was  a  necessity 
on  account  of  the  burning  heat.  Their  manner  of 
life  was  patriarchal;  they  were  liberal  and  kind,  and 
seemed  to  be  available  foundation  stones  for  the  future 
Church  which  the  missionaries  hoped  to  build  there. 
Satisfied  with  what  they  had  discovered,  they  returned 
to  Khartoum,  but  when  they  reported  in  due  time  to 
Propaganda,  the  mission  was  not  entrusted  to  them. 
It  was  handed  over  to  the  Congregation  of  the  Mis- 
sionaries of  Verona. 

In  1840  the  Jesuits  went  to  Algeria.  The  work  was 
not  overwhelming.  They  were  given  charge  of  an 
orphan  asylum.  But  unfortunately  though  they  had 
plenty  of  orphans  they  had  no  money  to  feed  them. 
Nevertheless,  trusting  in  God,  Father  Brumauld  not 
only  did  not  close  the  establishment,  but  purchased 
370  acres  of  ground,  in  the  centre  of  which  was  a  pile 
of  buildings  which  had  formerly  been  the  official  baths 
of  the  deys  of  Algiers.  In  1848  the  asylum  sheltered 
250  orphans.  Fr.  Brumauld  simply  went  around  the 
cafes  and  restaurants  ancl  money  poured  into  his  hat, 
for  the  enterprise  appealed  to  every  one.  He  even 
gathered  up  at  the  hotels  the  left-over  food  and  brought 
it  back  to  the  motherless  and  fatherless  little  beggars 
whom  he  had  picked  up  at  the  street  corners .  They  were 


Modern  Missions  813 

filthy,  ragged  and  vicious,  but  he  scraped  them  clean 
and  clothed  them,  taught  them  the  moral  law  and  gave 
them  instructions  in  the  useful  trades  and  occupations. 
Marshal  Bougeaud,  the  governor,  fell  in  love  with 
the  priest  and  when  told  he  was  a  Jesuit,  replied 
"  he  may  be  the  devil  himself  if  you  will,  but  he  is  doing 
good  in  Algeria  and  will  be  my  friend  forever."  One 
day  some  Arab  children  were  brought  in  and  he  said 
to  Father  Brumauld  "  Try  to  make  Christians  out  of 
these  youngsters.  If  you  succeed  they  won't  be  shoot- 
ing at  us  one  day  from  the  underbrush." 

The  Orphanage  stood  in  the  highroad  that  led  to 
Blidak  and  permission  was  asked  to  get  in  touch  with 
natives.  Leave  was  given  Father  Brumauld  to  put  up 
a  house  which  served  as  cafe  for  the  Arabs.  It  had  a 
large  hall  for  the  travellers  and  a  shed  for  the  beasts. 
Next  to  it  was  a  school  the  upper  part  of  which  gave 
him  rooms  for  his  little  community.  It  was  a  zaoui 
for  the  Christian  marabouts,  a  meeting  place  for  the 
French  and  natives,  and  a  neutral  ground  where 
fanaticism  was  not  inflamed  but  made  to  die  out. 
All  the  governors,  Pelissier,  the  Due  d'Aumale,  Mac- 
Mahon,  Admiral  de  Gueydon  and  General  Chanzy  were 
fond  of  the  Father  and  encouraged  him  in  his  work. 
One  day  General  d'Hautpoul  praised  him  for  his 
success,  and  advised  him  to  begin  another  establish- 
ment. The  suggestion  was  acted  on  immediately. 
The  government  was  appealed  to  and  soon  a  second 
orphanage  was  in  operation  at  Bouffarik  further  South. 
Finally,  as  the  number  of  Arab  orphans  was  diminish- 
ing in  consequence  of  better  domestic  conditions, 
Brumauld  asked  why  he  could  not  receive  orphans  from 
France?  Of  course  he  could,  and  he  was  made  happy 
when  200  of  them  were  sent  as  a  present  from  Paris. 
There  would  be  so  many  gamins  less  in  the  streets  of 
the  capital. 


814  The  Jesuits 

Meantime,  residences  and  colleges  were  being  estab- 
lished in  the  cities  of  Al-Oran,  Constantine  and  Algiers, 
but  when  at  the  instance  of  the  bishop,  Father  Schimbri 
opened  a  little  house  in  the  neighborhood  of  Selif  and 
was  ingratiating  himself  with  the  natives,  the  authori- 
ties demanded  his  immediate  recall.  Later,  when  the 
bishop  solicited  leave  to  begin  a  native  mission  he 
was  denounced  in  Paris  for  influencing  minors,  because 
he  had  asked  some  Lazarists  to  teach  a  few  vagabond 
Arab  children;  but  the  government,  whose  disrespect 
for  religion  was  a  by-word  with  the  natives,  had  no 
scruple  in  building  Moslem  schoolhouses,  allowing  a 
French  general  to  pronounce  an  eulogy  of  Islamism  in  the 
pulpit  of  a  mosque.  While  it  forbade  religious  pro- 
cessions, it  provided  a  ship  to  carry  Arabian  pilgrims 
to  Mecca.  It  was  so  scrupulously  careful  of  the 
Moslem  conscience  that  it  forbade  the  nuns  to  hang  up 
a  crucifix  in  the  hospital  when  these  holy  women  were 
nursing  sick  Mohammedans. 

In  1864  there  were  Jesuit  chaplains  in  two  of  the 
forts,  and  from  there  they  ventured  among  the  natives 
with  whom  they  soon  became  popular.  That  was 
too  much  to  put  up  with,  so  they  were  ordered  to  dis- 
continue, because,  forsooth,  they  were  attacking  the 
right  of  freedom  of  conscience.  The  result  of  this 
governmental  policy  was  that  in  the  revolt  of  the 
Kabyles  in  1871  the  leaders  of  the  insurgents  were  the 
Arab  students  who  had  been  given  exclusively  lay  and 
irreligious  instructions  in  Fort  Napoleon.  Father 
Brou  says  (viii,  218)  that  MacMahon  who  was  governor 
of  the  colony  was  opposed  to  Cardinal  Lavigerie's 
efforts  to  Christianize  the  natives,  but  that  Napoleon 
III  supported  the  cardinal,  who  after  his  victory, 
installed  the  Jesuits  in  the  orphanage  and  also  made 
Father  Terasse  novice  master  of  the  community 


Modern  Missions  815 

of  White  Fathers,  which  was  then  being  founded; 
two  others  were  commissioned  to  put  themselves  in 
communication  with  the  tribes  of  the  Sahara  and  when 
they  reported  that  everything  was  favorable  the  new 
Order  began  its  triumphant  career.  That  was  in  1872. 
When  Vice-Admiral  de  Gueydon  was  made  governor 
he  willingly  permitted  the  cardinal  to  employ  Jesuits  as 
well  as  White  Fathers  in  the  work  among  the  Kabyles, 
but  de  Gueydon  was  quickly  removed  from  office  and 
the  old  methods  of  persecution  were  resumed.  When 
the  year  1880  arrived  and  the  government  was  busy 
closing  Jesuit  houses,  the  single  one  left  to  them  in 
Algeria  was  seized. 

Portugal  graciously  made  a  gift  to  Spain  of  the 
Island  of  Fernando  Po  in  the  Gulf  of  Guinea.  Brou 
calls  it  "an  island  of  hell,"  with  heat  like  a  lime-kiln, 
and  reeking  with  yellow  fever.  It  was  inhabited  by 
a  race  of  negroes  called  Boubis,  who  were  dwarfs,  with 
rickety  limbs,  malformed,  tattooed  from  head  to  foot, 
smeared  with  a  compound  of  red  clay  and  oil,  speaking 
five  different  dialects,  each  one  unintelligible  to 
speakers  of  the  others;  they  had  been  charged  with 
poisoning  the  streams  so  as  to  get  rid  of  the  Portuguese 
and  were  trying  to  kill  the  Spaniards  by  starvation. 
It  cannot  have  been  brotherly  love  that  suggested 
this  Portuguese  present.  To  this  lovely  spot  Queen 
Isabella  of  Spain  invited  the  Jesuits  in  1859,  and  they 
accepted  the  offer.  They  lived  among  the  blacks, 
unravelled  the  tangle  of  the  five  dialects  and  won 
the  affection  of  the  natives.  Their  success  in  civilizing 
these  degraded  creatures  was  such  that  whenever  a 
quarrel  broke  out  in  any  of  the  villages  the  governor 
had  only  to  send  his  staff  of  office  and  peace  descended 
on  the  settlement.  In  other  words  the  missionaries 
had  made  Fernando  Po  a  Paraguay.  This  condition 


816  The  Jesuits 

of  things  lasted  twelve  years,  but  when  Isabella  de- 
scended from  her  throne  the  first  act  of  the  revolutionists 
was  to  expel  the  Jesuits  from  the  mission. 

Leo  XIII  had  ordered  the  General,  Father  Beckx  to 
begin  a  seminary  at  Cairo.  It  was  opened  with  twelve 
pupils.  Three  years  afterwards  occurred  the  Turkish 
massacre  of  Damascus  and  Libanus  and  the  bombard- 
ment of  Alexandria  by  the  English.  In  consequence 
of  all  this  the  seminarians  fled  to  Beirut,  and  after 
the  war  a  college  was  begun  at  the  deserted  establish- 
ment of  the  Lazarists  at  Alexandria.  Cairo  was  near 
by,  but  there  was  such  an  antagonism  between  the 
two  cities  that  two  distinct  colleges  with  different 
methods  and  courses  had  to  be  maintained.  Cairo 
was  Egyptian  in  tone;  Alexandria  was  French.  Mean- 
while, a  mission  was  established  on  the  Nile  at  Nineh 
which  was  some  distance  south  of  Cairo.  In  this 
mission  the  young  priests  trained  at  Beirut  were 
employed,  and  they  proved  to  be  such  excellent  apostles 
that  Leo  XIII  made  three  of  them  bishops  and  thus 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  United  Coptic  hierarchy. 
In  1905  there  were  20,000  United  Copts  in  Egypt, 
four-fifths  of  whom  had  been  reclaimed  from  the 
schism.  This  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because  the 
Protestants  had  spent  enormous  amounts  of  money  in 
schools,  hospitals,  and  asylums. 

Madagascar  was  originally  called  the  Island  of 
St.  Lawrence,  because  it  was  first  sighted  on  the  festival 
day  of  the  great  martyr  by  Diego  Diaz,  who  with 
Cabral,  the  Portuguese  discoverer,  was  exploring  the 
Indian  Ocean  in  the  year  1500.  A  Portuguese  priest 
was  massacred  there  in  1540;  in  1585  a  Dominican 
was  poisoned  by  the  natives,  and  in  the  seventeenth 
century  two  Jesuits  came  from  Goa  with  a  native 
prince  who  had  been  captured  by  the  Portuguese. 
Their  benevolence  toward  the  prince  secured  them 


Modern  Missions  817 

permission  to  preach  Christianity  for  a  while,  but 
when  their  influence  began  to  show  itself,  they  were, 
in  obedience  to  a  royal  order,  absolutely  avoided  by 
the  natives  so  that  one  starved  to  death;  the  other 
succeeded  in  reaching  home.  The  Lazarists  came  in 
1648,  but  remained  only  fourteen  months,  two  of  their 
number  having  died  meantime.  Other  attempts  were 
made,  but  all  ended  in  disaster  to  the  missionaries. 
Nothing  more  was  done  until  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  In  1832  Fathers  de  Solages  and  Dal- 
mond  were  sent  out,  but  they  had  been  anticipated  by 
the  Protestant  missionaries  who,  as  early  as  1830,  had 
32  schools  with  4,000  pupils.  De  Solages  soon 
succumbed  and  Dalmond  continued  to  work  on  the 
small  islands  off  the  coast  until  1843,  when  he  returned 
to  Europe  to  ask  Father  Roothaan  to  send  him  some 
Jesuits.  Six  members  of  the  Society  together  with 
two  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Ghost  responded  to  the  call, 
but  they  could  get  no  farther  than  the  islands  of  Nossi- 
Be  or  St.  Mary's  and  Reunion,  or  Bourbon  as  it  was 
called. 

The  Queen  Ranavalo,  who  was  a  ferocious  and  blood- 
thirsty pagan,  had  no  use  for  any  kind  of  evangelists, 
Protestant  or  Catholic,  but  there  was  a  Frenchman 
named  Laborde  in  the  capital,  who  was  held  in  high 
esteem  by  her  majesty,  because  he  was  a  cannon- 
founder,  a  manufacturer  of  furniture  and  a  maker  of 
soap.  Besides  these  accomplishments  to  recommend 
him,  he  had  won  the  esteem  of  the  heir-apparent. 
Incidentally  Laborde  put  the  prince  in  relation  with 
the  missionaries  off  the  coast.  A  short  time  after- 
wards, there  appeared  in  the  royal  city  another  French- 
man who  could  make  balloons,  organize  theatrical 
representations,  and  compound  drugs.  He  was  ac- 
cepted in  the  queen's  service.  He  was  a  Jesuit  in 
disguise.  His  name  was  Finaz,  and  he  continued  to 


818  The  Jesuits 

remain  at  Tananarive  until  1857,  when  the  violence  of 
the  queen,  who  was  insanely  superstitious,  brought 
about  an  uprising  against  her  which  was  organized  by 
the  Protestant  missionaries.  She  prevailed  against  the 
rebels,  and  as  a  consequence  all  Europeans  were 
expelled  from  the  island,  and  among  them  Father 
Finaz.  He  could  congratulate  himself  that  he  had  at 
least  learned  the  language  and  made  himself  acquainted 
with  the  inhabitants. 

Four  years  later  (1861),  the  queen  died,  and  King 
Radama  II  ascended  the  throne;  whereupon  six  Jesuits 
opened  a  mission  in  Tananarive.  They  soon  had  2 
schools  with  400  pupils  and  numberless  catechumens, 
but  their  success  was  not  solid,  for  the  Malgassy 
easily  goes  from  one  side  to  another  as  his  personal 
advantage  may  dictate.  Radama  was  killed,  and 
then  followed  a  forty  years'  struggle  between  the 
French  and  the  English  to  get  control  of  the  island. 
The  English  prevailed  for  a  time  and,  in  1869, 
Protestantism  was  declared  to  be  the  state  religion. 
The  number  of  evangelists  multiplied  enormously, 
but  they  were  merely  government  agents  and  knew 
next  to  nothing  about  Christian  truth  or  morality. 
The  confusion  was  increased,  when  to  the  English 
parsons  were  added  American  Quakers  and  Nor- 
wegian Lutherans.  The  Evangelical  statistics  of  all 
of  them  in  1892  were  most  imposing.  Thus  the 
Independents  claimed  51,033  and  the  Norwegians 
47,681,  with  37,500  children  in  their  schools.  The 
names  were  on  the  lists,  but  the  school-houses  were 
often  empty,  and  in  the  interim  between  the  different 
official  visits  of  the  inspectors  often  no  instruction  was 
given.  Against  this  the  Catholics  had  only  22  chapels 
and  25  schools,  and  they  were  mostly  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Tananarive. 


Modern  Missions  819 

France  was  subsequently  the  dominant  influence  in 
Madagascar  but,  as  in  the  mother  country  religion 
was  tabooed,  there  was  little  concern  about  it  in  the 
colonies.  When  the  Franco-Prussian  war  showed  the 
weakness  of  France,  the  respect  for  the  alleged  religion 
of  France  vanished,  especially  when  a  crusade  began 
against  the  Catholic  schools.  Nevertheless  the  faithful 
continued  to  grow  in  number,  and  in  1882  they  were 
reckoned  at  80,000  with  152  churches,  44  priests,  527 
teachers  and  2,000  pupils.  War  broke  out  in  1881, 
and  the  missionaries  were  expelled  but  returned  after 
hostilities  ceased,  and  found  that  their  neophytes, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  princess  of  the  royal  blood, 
had  held  firmly  to  their  religion,  notwithstanding  the 
closing  of  the  schools  and  the  sacking  of  the  churches. 
After  these  troubles,  conversions  increased,  and  in 
1894  there  were  75  Jesuit  priests  in  the  island;  and, 
besides  the  primary  schools  which  had  increased  in 
number,  a  college  and  nine  high  schools  as  well  as 
a  printing  house  and  two  leper  hospitals  were  erected. 
Added  to  this,  an  observatory  was  built  and  serious 
work  began  in  geographical  research,  cartography, 
ethnography,  natural  history,  folklore  and  philology. 

Just  at  the  height  of  this  prosperity,  a  persecution 
began.  The  missionaries  were  expelled,  their  buildings 
looted,  and  the  observatory  wrecked.  In  1896  the 
bishop  counted  108  of  his  chapels  which  had  been 
devastated,  but  in  1897  General  Galieni  arrived,  and 
the  queen  vanished  from  the  scene.  After  that  the 
faith  prospered,  and  in  the  year  1900  alone  there  were 
94,998  baptisms.  In  1896  Propaganda  divided  Mada- 
gascar into  three  vicariates:  one  entrusted  to  the 
Lazarists;  another  to  the  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Ghost; 
and  a  third  to  the  Jesuits  of  the  provinces  of  Toulouse 
and  Champagne.  In  the  Jesuit  portion,  the  latest 


820  The  Jesuits 

statistics  give  160,080  Christians  and  170,000  cate- 
chumens, with  74  priests,  8  scholastics  and  n  lay- 
brothers.  The  chief  difficulty  to  contend  with  is  the 
gross  immorality  of  the  people  who  are,  in  consequence, 
almost  impervious  to  religious  teaching,  and  at  the  same 
time  easily  captured  by  the  money  that  pours  into  the 
country  from  England  and  Norway.  The  French 
officials,  of  course,  cannot  be  expected  to  further  the 
cause  of  Catholicity. 

In  1877,  when  Bishop  Ricards  of  Grahamstown  in 
South  Africa  asked  the  Jesuits  to  accept  the  Zam- 
besi Mission,  Father  Weld  ardently  took  up  the 
work,  and  in  April,  1879,  Father  Depelchin,  a 
Belgian,  started  from  Kimberly,  with  eleven  com- 
panions for  Matabeleland,  over  which  King  Lo  Benguela 
ruled.  It  was  a  five  months'  journey  and  >  the 
missionaries  did  not  arrive  at  the  royal  kraal  until 
September  2.  But  as  the  prospects  of  conversion  of 
the  much-married  king  and  his  followers  were  not 
particularly  bright,  only  one  part  of  the  expedition 
remained  with  Lo  Benguela,  while  two  others  struck 
for  the  interior.  There  several  of  the  strongest 
missionaries  sickened  and  died.  The  work  went  on, 
however,  for  ten  weary  years  when  the  king  told  them 
to  stop  teaching  religion  and  show  the  people  how 
to  till  the  soil.  Otherwise  they  must  go.  They 
accepted  the  offer,  of  course,  for  it  got  them  a  better 
means  of  imparting  religious  instruction. 

Then  a  quarrel  broke  out  between  the  British,  the 
Portuguese,  the  Boers  and  Lo  Benguela  for  the  pos- 
session of  Mashonaland.  The  British  as  usual  won 
the  fight,  but  when  Cecil  Rhodes  came  to  the  kraal, 
to  arrange  matters,  Lo  Benguela  ordered  all  the  whites 
out  of  his  dominion  and  the  Fathers  withdrew.  A 
new  difficulty  then  arose  between  the  English  and 
Portuguese,  and  the  mission  was  divided  between 


Modern  Missions  821 

Upper  and  Lower  Zambesi,  the  latter  being  assigned 
to  the  Portuguese  Jesuits.  There  was  trouble  with 
the  natives  of  both  sections  for  some  time,  and  then 
the  Anglo-Boer  war  broke  out,  so  that  for  twenty-five 
years  very  little  apostolic  progress  was  made.  In 
Upper  Zambesi  or  Rhodesia,  as  it  is  called,  there  are  at 
present  40  Jesuit  priests  and  24  brothers,  and  3  mis- 
sionaries of  Mariannhill,  with  115  nuns,  20  churches 
or  chapels,  and  30  schools  of  which  26  are  for  natives, 
and  about  5,000  Catholics.  Naturally  speaking  the 
result  scarcely  warrants  the  outlay  but  the  purpose  is 
supernatural  and  intelligible  only  from  that  point  of 
view.  In  Lower  Zambesi,  which  was  given  to  the 
Portuguese  Jesuits,  there  have  been  no  troubles  because 
it  is  garrisoned  by  Portuguese  soldiers;  the  four  sta- 
tions in  that  district  with  their  thirty-five  Fathers 
were  doing  splendid  work  when  the  Portuguese  revolu- 
tion occurred;  the  Jesuits  were  then  expelled,  but 
twenty-six  Fathers  of  the  Divine  Word  took  their 
place. 

The  early  days  of  the  Zambesi  mission  evoked 
splendid  manifestations  of  the  old  heroic  spirit  of 
the  Society.  Thus  we  read  of  one  of  the  missionaries,  a 
Father  Wehl,  who  was  separated  from  his  companions 
and  wandered  for  twenty-six  days  in  the  bush,  luckily 
escaping  the  wild  beasts  and  finally  falling  into  the 
hands  of  some  Kaffirs  who  were  about  to  put  him  to 
death,  when  he  was  saved  by  the  opportune  arrival  of  an 
English  gold-hunter.  But  starvation  and  disease  had 
shattered  his  health  and  his  mind  was  gone.  Six 
months  afterwards  he  died. 

Meantime  his  two  companions  Father  Law  and 
Brother  Hedley  found  shelter  among  the  natives,  but 
had  to  live  in  a  clay  hut  which  was  a  veritable  oven. 
They  both  fell  sick  of  fever;  little  or  no  food  was  given 
them,  and  they  slowly  starved  to  death.  They  lay 


822  The  Jesuits 

along  side  of  each  other,  neither  being  able  to  assist  his 
companion,  and  when  finally  the  Father  breathed  his 
last,  all  the  poor  lonely  brother  could  do  was  to  place 
a  handkerchief  on  the  face,  but  when  he  removed  the 
covering  in  the  morning,  he  found  that  the  rats  had 
been  eating  the  flesh.  The  dead  missionary  lay  there 
for  some  time  because  the  superstitious  natives  would 
not  touch  the  corpse;  when  finally  a  rope  was  tied 
around  it,  they  dragged  it  out  of  the  hut  and  left  it 
in  the  forest.  For  three  weeks  after  this  horrible 
funeral  the  poor  brother  had  to  fight  off  the  rats  that 
were  attacking  himself;  at  last  the  chief  took  pity  on 
him  and  had  him  carried  on  a  litter  to  a  band  of  other 
missionaries  who  were  approaching.  When  his  friends 
saw  him  they  burst  into  tears.  He  had  not  changed 
his  clothes  for  five  months  and  they  were  in  tatters. 
His  whole  body  was  covered  with  sores  and  ulcers 
and  the  wounds  were  filled  with  vermin.  He  was  in  a 
state  of  stupor  when  he  arrived,  but  strange  to  say 
he  recovered.  His  dead  companion,  the  priest,  had  been 
a  naval  officer,  and  was  a  convert  to  the  Faith  and  the 
grandson  of  one  of  the  lord  chancellors  of  England. 
The  Congo  mission  was  organized  by  the  Belgium 
Jesuits  in  1885,  under  the  auspices  of  Leopold  II  of 
Belgium,  who  had  established  the  Congo  Free  State. 
His  majesty  requested  the  Fathers  to  assist  him,  but 
he  gave  them  no  financial  aid  whatever,  though  he 
was  pointedly  asked  to  do  so.  The  Congo  Free  State 
begins  400- miles  from  the  Atlantic  ocean  and  extends 
to  Central  Africa.  Leopold's  plan  was  to  abolish 
slavery  within  the  boundaries  of  this  domain;  then  to 
make  the  adult  male  population  his  soldiers,  and  mean- 
time to  place  the  orphans  and  abandoned  children  in 
asylums  which  the  missionaries  would  manage.  Some 
of  these  establishments  were  to  be  supported  from  the 
public  revenues,  others  by  charity.  The  whole  hope 


Modern  Missions  823 

of  the  mission  was  in  these  orphanages,  for  nothing 
could  be  expected  from  the  adult  population.  The 
boys  were  to  be  taught  a  trade  and  then  married  at 
the  proper  time.  These  households  were  to  be  visited 
and  supervised  by  the  missionaries. 

It  was  an  excellent  plan,  but  it  was  opposed  by  the 
Belgian  anti-clericals,  who  objected  to  giving  so  much 
power  to  priests.  A  number  of  English  Protestants 
also  busied  themselves  in  spreading  calumnies  about 
these  settlements  and  brought  their  accusations  to 
court,  where  sentence  was  frequently  given  without 
hearing  the  accused.  The  charges  were  based  on 
alleged  occurrences  in  three  out  of  the  forty-four  mis- 
sion stations.  The  persecution  became  so  acute 
that  the  Jesuits  appealed  to  the  king  and  received 
the  thanks  of  his  majesty  and  the  government  for  the 
work  they  had  performed,  but  the  calumnies  were  not 
retracted,  until  May  26,  1906,  when  a  formal  docu- 
ment was  issued  by  the  Free  State  declaring  that  it 
greatly  esteemed  the  work  performed  by  the  Catholic 
missionaries  in  the  civilization  of  the  State.  In  the 
following  year  on  May  22,  it  added:  "  Since  it  is 
impossible  to  do  without  the  missionaries  in  the 
conversion  of  the  blacks,  and  as  their  help  is  of  the 
greatest  value  in  imparting  instruction,  we  recommend 
that  the  mission  be  made  still  more  efficacious  by  grant- 
ing them  a  subsidy  for  the  upkeep  of  their  institutions. 
At  the  beginning  of  1913,  the  Jesuits  had  seven  stations 
and  forty  missionaries.  In  spite  of  all  this,  however, 
the  work  of  systematic  calumniation  still  continues. 

The  great  war  of  1914  brought  absolute  ruin  on  all 
the  missions  of  Asia  and  Africa.  Thus  France  called 
to  the  army  every  French  priest  or  lay  brother  who 
was  not  crippled  by  age  and  infirmity,  and  made  him 
fight  in  the  ranks  as  a  common  soldier  or  a  stretcher 
bearer  in  the  hospital  or  on  the  battlefield.  This  was 


824  The  Jesuits 

the  case  not  only  with  the  Jesuits,  but  with  other 
religious  orders  and  the  secular  priesthood.  Nor  was 
this  call  to  the  colors  restricted  to  those  who  were  in 
the  French  colonies;  it  affected  all  priests  or  brother* 
of  French  birth  who  were  laboring  in  Nigeria,  Sierra 
Leone,  Belgian  Congo,  Angola,  Zambesi,  Canada,  Haiti, 
the  United  States  or  South  America.  Sixty  priests 
or  brothers  had  to  leave  Japan.  Out  of  forty-three 
missionaries  of  the  Society  of  African  Missions  who 
were  in  Egypt,  half  had  to  leave.  Of  the  twenty-two 
who  were  on  the  Ivory  Coast  sixteen  were  mobilized. 
Indeed,  four  bishops  were  summoned  to  the  ranks, 
Mgrs.  Moury  of  the  Ivory  Coast,  Terrien  of  Benin, 
Perros  of  Siam,  and  Hermel  of  Haiti.  There  were  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  thirty-five  Jesuits  from  the 
Levant  in  the  army,  besides  others  from  Madagascar, 
Madura  and  China. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

COLLEGES 

Responsibility  of  the  Society  for  loss  of  Faith  in  Europe.    The  Loi 
Falloux  —  Bombay  —  Calcutta  —  Beirut  —  American  Colleges  — 
Scientists,  Archaeologists,  Meteorologists,  Seismologists,  Astronomers  — 
Ethnologists. 

THE  Society  of  Jesus  is  frequently  charged  with  being 
responsible  for  the  present  irreligious  condition  of  the 
Latin  nations,  of  France  in  particular,  because,  having 
had  the  absolute  control  of  education  in  the  past,  it 
did  not  train  its  pupils  to  resist  the  inroads  of  atheism 
and  unbelief. 

In  the  first  place,  the  charge  is  based  on  the  sup- 
position that  the  Society  had  complete  control  of  the 
education  of  Catholic  countries,  which  is  not  the  case. 
Thus,  for  instance,  Montesquieu,  one  of  the  first  and 
most  dangerous  of  the  assailants  of  the  Church  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  educated  by  the  Oratorians. 
As  much  as  thirty-seven  years  before  the  French 
Revolution,  namely,  in  1752,  Father  Vitelleschi,  the 
General  of  the  Society,  addressed  the  following  letter 
to  the  Jesuits  throughout  the  world: 

"  It  is  of  supreme  importance  that  what  we  call  the 
schol&  inferiores  (those  namely  below  philosophy  and 
theology)  should  be  looked  after  with  extreme  solici- 
tude. We  owe  this  to  the  municipalities  which  have 
established  colleges  for  us,  and  entrusted  to  us  the 
education  of  their  youth.  This  is  especially  incumbent 
upon  us  at  the  present  time,  when  such  an  intense  desire 
for  scholastic  education  everywhere  manifests  itself, 
and  has  called  into  existence  so  many  schools  of  that 
kind.  Hence,  unless  we  are  careful,  there  is  danger  of 

[825] 


826  The  Jesuits 

our  colleges  being  considered  unnecessary.  We  must 
not  forget  that  for  a  long  time  there  were  almost  no 
other  Latin  schools  but  ours,  or  at  least  very  few; 
so  that  parents  were  forced  to  send  their  sons  to  us 
who  otherwise  would  not  have  done  so.  But  now  in 
many  places,  many  schools  are  competing  with  ours,  and 
we  are  exposing  ourselves  to  be  regarded  as  not  up  to 
the  mark,  and  thus  losing  both  our  reputation  and  our 
scholars.  Hence,  our  pupils  are  not  to  be  detained 
for  too  long  a  period  by  a  multiplication  of  courses, 
and  they  must  be  more  than  moderately  imbued  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  Classics.  If  they  have  not  the  best 
of  masters,  it  is  very  much  to  be  feared  that  they  will 
betake  themselves  elsewhere  and  then  every  effort  on 
our  part  to  repair  the  damage  will  be  futile." 

In  the  second  place,  after  the  year  1762,  that  is 
twenty-seven  years  before  the  Revolution,  there  were 
not  only  no  Jesuit  colleges  at  all  in  France,  but  no 
Jesuits,  and  consequently  there  was  an  entire  generation 
which  had  been  trained  in  schools  that  were  distinctly 
and  intensely  antagonistic  to  everything  connected  with 
the  Society.  Furthermore,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact, 
provable  by  chronology,  that  the  most  conspicuous 
men  in  that  dreadful  upheaval,  namely,  Robespierre, 
Desmoulins,  Tallien,  Fr6ron,  Chenier  and  others  were 
educated  in  schools  from  which  the  Jesuits  had  been 
expelled  before  some  of  those  furious  young  demagogues 
were  born.  Danton,  for  instance,  was  only  three  years 
old  in  1762;  Marat  was  a  Protestant  from  Geneva, 
and,  of  course,  was  not  a  Jesuit  pupil;  and  Mira- 
beau  was  educated  by  private  tutors.  The  fact  that 
Robespierre  and  Desmoulins  were  together  at  Louis- 
le-Grand  has  misled  some  into  the  belief  that  they  were 
Jesuit  students,  whereas  the  college  when  they  were 
there  had  long  been  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Society. 
The  same  is  true  of  Portugal  and  Spain.  The  Society 


Colleges  827 

had  ceased  to  exist  in  Portugal  as  early  as  1758,  and  in 
Spain  in  1767. 

Far  from  being  in  control  of  the  schools  of  France, 
the  whole  history  of  the  French  Jesuits  is  that  of 
one  uninterrupted  struggle  to  get  schools  at  all. 
Against  them,  from  the  very  beginning,  were  the 
University  of  Paris  and  the  various  parliaments  of 
France,  which  represented  the  highest  culture  of  the 
nation  and  bitterly  resented  the  intrusion  of  the  Society 
into  the  domain  of  education. 

Not  only  is  this  true  of  the  period  that  preceded  but 
also  of  the  one  that  followed  the  French  Revolution. 
It  was  only  in  1850,  namely  seventy-seven  years  after 
the  Suppression  of  the  Society,  that  the  Jesuits,  in 
virtue  of  the  Loi  Falloux,  were  permitted  to  open  a 
single  school  in  France.  The  wonder  is  that  the  inces- 
sant confiscations  and  suppressions  which  followed 
would  permit  of  any  educational  success  whatever. 
Nevertheless,  in  the  short  respites  that  were  allowed 
them  they  filled  the  army  and  navy  with  officers  who 
were  not  only  conspicuous  in  their  profession  but,  at 
the  same  time,  thoroughgoing  Catholics.  Marshal 
Foch  is  one  of  their  triumphs.  Indeed  it  was  the  supe- 
riority of  their  education  that  provoked  the  latest 
suppression  of  the  Jesuit  schools  in  France. 

It  is  this  government  monopoly  of  education  in  all 
the  Continental  countries  that  constitutes  the  present 
difficulty  both  for  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  for  all  the 
other  teaching  orders.  Thus  after  1872,  the  German 
province  had  not  a  single  college  in  the  whole  extent 
of  the  German  Empire.  It  could  only  attempt  to  do 
something  beyond  the  frontiers.  It  has  one  in  Austria, 
a  second  in  Holland,  and  a  third  in  Denmark.  Austria 
has  only  one  to  its  credit;  Hungary  one  and  Bohemia 
another.  The  province  of  Rome  has  one;  Sicily  two, 
one  of  which  is  in  Malta,  and  Malta  is  English  terri- 


828  The  Jesuits 

tory;  Naples  had  three  and  Turin  four,  but  some  of 
these  have  already  disappeared.  All  the  splendid 
colleges  of  France  were  closed  by  Waldeck-Rousseau  in 
1890.  Spain  has  five  excellent  establishments,  but 
they  have  no  guarantee  of  permanency.  Belgium  has 
thirteen  colleges,  packed  with  students,  but  the  ter- 
rible World  War  has  at  least  for  a  time  depleted  them. 
Holland  has  three  colleges  of  its  own.  England  four, 
and  Ireland  three. 

The  expulsions,  however,  have  their  compensations. 
Thus  when  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  Germany  by 
Bismarck,  the  English  government  welcomed  them  to 
India,  and  the  splendid  college  of  Bombay  was  the 
result.  Italy  also  benefited  by  the  disaster.  Not  to 
mention  other  distinguished  men,  Father  Ehrle  became 
Vatican  librarian,  and  Father  Wernz,  rector  of  the 
Gregorian  University  and  subsequently  General  of  the 
Society.  In  South  America,  the  exiles  did  excellent  work 
in  Argentina  and  Ecuador.  The  Jesuits  of  New  York 
gave  them  an  entrance  into  Buffalo,  and  from  that 
starting-point  they  established  a  chain  of  colleges  in 
the  West,  and  later,  when  conditions  called  for  it,  they 
were  assimilated  to  the  provinces  of  Maryland,  New 
York  and  Missouri,  thus  greatly  increasing  the  efficiency 
of  those  sections  of  the  Society. 

When  driven  out  of  their  country,  the  Portuguese 
Jesuits  betook  themselves  to  Brazil,  where  their  help 
was  greatly  needed;  the  Italians  went  to  New  Mexico 
and  California;  and  the  French  missions  of  China  and 
Syria  benefited  by  the  anti-clericalism  of  the  home 
government;  for  Zikawei  became  an  important  scien- 
tific world-centre  and  Beirut  obtained  a  university. 
The  latter  was,  until  the  war  broke  out,  a  great  seat  of 
Oriental  studies. 

The  most  imposing  institutions  in  Beirut,  a  city  with 
a  population  of  over  150,000,  made  up  of  Mussulmans, 


Cpl  leges  829 

Greeks,  Latins,  Americans  and  Jews,  are  those  of  the 
Jesuits.  They  maintain  and  direct  outside  of  Beirut 
192  schools  for  boys  and  girls  with  294  teachers  and 
12,000  pupils.  There  is,  in  the  city,  a  university  with 
a  faculty  of  medicine  (120  students)  founded  in  1881 
with  the  help  of  the  French  government;  its  examina- 
tions are  conducted  before  French  and  Ottoman 
physicians  and  its  diplomas  are  recognized  by  both 
France  and  Turkey.  The  university  has  also  a  semi- 
nary (60  students)  for  all  the  native  Rites.  Up  to 
1902  it  had  sent  out  228  students  including  three 
patriarchs,  fifteen  bishops,  one  hundred  and  fifteen  priests 
and  eighty-three  friars.  Its  faculty  of  philosophy  and 
theology  grants  the  same  degrees  as  the  Gregorian 
University  in  Rome.  Its  faculty  of  Oriental  languages 
and  sciences,  founded  in  1902,  teaches  literary  and  con- 
versational Arabic,  Hebrew,  Syriac,  Coptic  and  Ethi- 
opic ;  the  comparative  grammar  of  the  Semitic  languages ; 
the  history  and  geography  of  the  Orient;  Oriental 
archaeology;  Graeco-Roman  epigraphy  and  antiquities. 
Its  classical  college  has  400  pupils  and  its  three  primaries 
600.  A  printing-house,  inaugurated  in  1853,  is  now 
considered  to  be  the  foremost  for  its  output  in  that 
part  of  the  world.  Since  1871  it  has  published  a 
weekly  Arabic  paper,  and  since  1898  a  fortnightly 
review  in  the  same  language,  the  editors  of  which 
took  rank  at  once  among  the  best  Orientalists.  Besides 
continually  adding  to  their  collection  of  philological 
papers,  they  contribute  to  many  scientific  European 
reviews.  (The  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  II,  393.) 

There  are  Jesuit  colleges,  also,  throughout  India, 
such  as  the  great  institutions  of  Bombay  and  Calcutta 
with  their  subsidiary  colleges,  and  further  down  the 
Peninsula  are  Trichinopoly,  all  winning  distinction 
by  their  successful  courses  of  study.  Indeed  the  first 
effort  the  Society  makes  in  establishing  itself  in  any 


830  The  Jesuits 

part  of  the  world,  where  conditions  allow  it,  is  to 
organize  a  college.  If  they  would  relinquish  that  one 
work  they  would  be  left  in  peace. 

An  interesting  personage  appears  in  connection  with 
the  University  of  Beirut:  William  Gifford  Palgrave. 
It  is  true  that  one  period  of  his  amazing  career  humili- 
ated his  former  associates,  but  as  it  is  a  matter  of 
history  it  must  needs  be  told. 

He  was  the  son  of  an  eminent  English  Protestant 
lawyer,  Sir  Francis  Palgrave,  and  had  Jewish  blood  in 
his  veins.  He  was  born  in  1826,  and  after  a  brilliant 
course  of  studies  at  Oxford  began  his  romantic  career 
as  a  traveller.  He  went  first  to  India  and  was  an 
officer  of  Sepoys  in  the  British  army.  While  there, 
he  became  a  Catholic,  and  afterwards  presented 
himself  at  the  novitiate  of  Negapatam  as  an  appli- 
cant for  admission.  Unfortunately  his  request  was 
granted,  and  forthwith  he  changed  his  name  to  Michael 
Cohen,  as  he  said  to  conceal  his  identity.  This  was 
a  most  amazing  mask;  for  Palgrave  would  have 
escaped  notice,  whereas  everyone  would  immediately 
ask,  who  is  this  Jesuit  Jew?  How  he  was  admitted  is 
a  mystery,  especially  as  he  proclaimed  his  race  so 
openly. 

After  his  novitiate  he  was  sent  to  Rome  to  begin 
his  theology  —  another  mystery.  Why  was  he  not 
compelled  to  study  philosophy  first  like  everyone  else? 
Then  he  insisted  that  Rome  did  not  agree  with  his 
health,  and  he  was  transferred  to  Beirut  to  which  he 
betook  himself,  not  in  the  ordinary  steamer,  but  in 
a  sailing  vessel  filled  with  Mussulmans.  On  the  way,  he 
picked  up  Arabic.  Inside  of  a  year,  namely  in  1834,  he 
was  made  a  priest  and  given  charge  of  the  men's  sodality 
which  he  charmed  by  his  facility  in  the  use  of  the  native 
tongue;  in  the  meantime  he  made  many  adventurous 
journeys  to  the  interior  to  convert  the  natives,  but 


Colleges  831 

failed  every  time.  In  1860  he  was  sent  to  France  for 
his  third  year  of  probation  under  the  famous  Father 
Fouillot,  whom  he  fascinated  by  his  scheme  of  entering 
Arabia  Petrea  as  its  apostle.  He  succeeded  in  getting 
Louis  Napoleon  to  give  him  10,000  francs  on  the  plea 
that  he  would  thus  carry  out  the  scheme  of  the  Cheva- 
lier Lascaris  whom  Napoleon  Bonaparte  had  sent  to 
the  East. 

At  Rome,  he  found  the  Father  General  quite  cold  to 
the  proposition,  and  when  he  had  the  audacity  to 
ask  Propaganda  for  permission  to  say  Mass  in  Arabic, 
he  was  told:  "  Convert  your  Arabs  first  and  then  we 
shall  see  about  the  Mass."  The  brother  who  was  to 
go  with  him  fell  ill,  and  the  General  then  insisted  that 
he  should  not  attempt  the  journey  without  a  priest  as 
companion;  whereupon  Palgrave  persuaded  the  Greek 
Bishop  of  Zahle  to  ordain  one  of  the  lay  professors  of 
the  college,  after  a  few  days'  instruction  in  moral 
theology.  Fortunately  this  improvised  priest  turned 
out  well,  and  he  became  His  Beatitude  Mgr.  Geraigri, 
patriarch  of  the  Greek  Melchites. 

In  1862  the  travellers  set  out  by  way  of  Gaza  in 
Palestine,  Palgrave  as  a  physician,  the  other  as  his 
assistant.  They  covered  the  entire  Arabian  peninsula 
and  were  back  again  in  Beirut  at  the  end  of  fourteen 
months.  Palgrave  had  made  no  converts,  and  was 
himself  a  changed  man.  Even  his  sodalists  remarked 
it.  What  had  happened  no  one  ever  knew.  In  1 864  he 
was  sent  to  Maria-Laach  in  Germany,  where  the 
saintly  Father  Behrens  wrestled  with  him  in  vain  for 
a  while,  but  he  left  the  Society  and  passed  over  to 
Protestantism,  securing  meanwhile  an  appointment  as 
Prussian  consul  at  Mossul.  In  the  following  year  he 
published  an  account  of  his  travels  and  the  book  was 
a  European  sensation.  In  it  he  made  no  secret  of  his 
having  been  a  member  of  the  Society,  which  he  says  was 


832  The  Jesuits 

"  so  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  courageous  and  devoted 
philanthropy.  The  many  years  I  spent  in  the  East 
were  the  happiest  of  my  life."  In  1884  he  was  British 
consul  at  Montevideo  and  remained  there  till  1888  when 
he  died. 

For  twenty  years  he  seemed  never  to  have  been 
ashamed  of  his  apostasy,  but  three  or  four  years  before 
his  death  the  grace  of  God  found  him.  The  change 
was  noticed  on  his  return  from  a  trip  to  England. 
He  had  become  a  Catholic  again.  He  went  to  Mass 
and  received  Holy  Communion.  Although  a  govern- 
ment official,  he  refused  to  go  to  the  Protestant  Church 
even  for  the  queen's  jubilee,  in  spite  of  the  excitement 
caused  by  his  absence.  He  died  of  leprosy.  A  Jesuit 
attended  him  in  his  last  sickness,  and  he  was  buried 
with  all  the  rites  of  the  Church.  These  details  are 
taken  from  a  recent  publication  by  Father  Jullien, 
S.  J.,  entitled  "Nouvelle  mission  de  la  Compagnie  de 
Jesus  en  Syrie  "  (II,  iii.) 

The  great  difficulty  that  confronts  educators  of 
youth  in  our  times,  is  state  control.  In  the  United 
States  it  has  not  yet  gone  to  extremes,  but  every 
now  and  then  one  can  detect  tendencies  in  that  direc- 
tion. Meantime  the  Society  has  developed  satis- 
factorily along  educational  lines.  According  to  the 
report  of  October  10,  1916  (Woodstock  Letters,  V  45), 
there  were  16,438  students  in  its  American  colleges  and 
universities.  Of  these  13,301  were  day  scholars  and 
3,137  boarders.  There  were  3,943  in  the  college 
departments,  10,502  in  the  high  schools  and  1,416 
in  the  preparatory.  Besides  all  this,  there  were  com- 
mercial and  special  sections  numbering  737.  The 
total  increase  over  the  preceding  year  was  523. 

The  Maryland-New  York  provinces  had  1,848 
students  of  law,  341  of  medicine,  127  of  dentistry, 
122  of  pharmacy.  Missouri  had  786  students  of  law, 


Colleges  833 

643  of  medicine,  776  of  dentistry,  245  of  pharmacy, 
126  of  engineering,  530  of  finance,  240  of  sociology, 
425  of  music,  43  of  journalism,  and  61  in  the  nurse's 
training  school.  New  Orleans  had  a  law  school  of 
81  and  California  one  of  232  students. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  as  an  objection  to  Catholic 
colleges  that  they  give  only  a  Classical  education, 
and  are  thus  not  keeping  pace  with  the  world  outside. 
To  show  that  the  objection  has  no  foundation  in  fact, 
it  would  be  sufficient  to  enter  any  Jesuit  college  which 
is  at  all  on  its  feet,  and  see  the  extensive  and  fully 
equipped  chemical  and  physical  laboratories,  the  seismic 
plants  and  in  some  cases  the  valuable  museums  of 
natural  history  which  they  possess.  If  it  were  other- 
wise, they  would  be  false  to  all  their  traditions;  for 
the  Society  has  always  been  conspicuous  for  its  achieve- 
ments in  the  natural  sciences.  It  has  produced 
not  only  great  mathematicians  and  astronomers,  but 
explorers,  cosmographers,  ethnologists,  and  archaeolo- 
gists. Thus,  for  instance,  there  would  have  been 
absolutely  no  knowledge  of  the  aborigines  of  North 
America,  their  customs,  their  manner  of  life,  their  food, 
their  dress,  their  superstitions,  their  dances,  their 
games,  their  language  had  it  not  been  for  the  minute 
details  sent  by  the  missionaries  of  the  old  and  new 
Society  to  their  superiors.  In  every  countiy  where 
they  have  been,  they  have  charted  the  territories  over 
which  they  journeyed  or  in  which  they  have  labored, 
described  their  natural  features,  catalogued  their  fauna 
and  flora,  enriched  the  pharmacopeia  of  the  world 
with  drugs,  foodstuffs  and  plants,  and  have  located 
the  salts  and  minerals  and  mines. 

That  this  is  not  idle  boasting  may  be  seen  at  a 

glance  in  Sommervogers  "  Bibliotheque  des  ecrivains." 

Thus  the  names  of  publications  on  mathematics  fill 

twenty-eight  columns  of  the  huge  folio  pages.     Then 

53 


834  The  Jesuits 

follow  other  long  lists  on  hydrostatics  and  hydraulics, 
navigation,  military  science;  surveying;  hydrography 
and  gnomics;  physics,  chemistry  and  seismology  call 
for  thirty  columns;  medical  sciences;  zoology,  botany, 
geology,  mineralogy,  paleontology,  rural  economy  and 
agriculture  require  eight.  Then  there  are  two  columns 
on  the  black  art.  The  fine  arts  including  painting, 
drawing,  sculpture,  architecture,  music,  equitation, 
printing  and  mnemonics  take  from  column  927  to  940. 

According  to  this  catalogue,  the  new  Society  has 
already  on  its  lists  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  writers 
on  subjects  pertaining  to  the  natural  sciences:  physics, 
chemistry,  mineralogy,  zoology,  botany,  paleontology, 
geography,  meteorology,  astronomy,  etc.  The  names 
of  living  writers  are  not  recorded.  Nor  does  this 
number  include  the  writers  who  published  their  works 
during  the  Suppression,  asde  Mailla,  who  in  1785  issued 
in  thirteen  volumes  a  history  of  China  with  plans 
and  maps,  the  outcome  of  an  official  survey  of  the 
country  —  a  work  entrusted  by  the  emperor  to  the 
Jesuits.  Father  de  Mailla  was  made  a  mandarin  for  his 
share  of  the  work. 

The  extraordinary  work  on  the  zoology  of  China 
by  the  French  Jesuit,  Pierre  Heude,  might  be  adduced 
as  an  illustration  of  similar  work  in  later  times.  He 
began  his  studies  in  boyhood  as  a  botanist,  but 
abandoned  that  branch  of  science  when  he  went  to 
the  East.  While  laboring  as  a  missionary  there  for 
thirty  years  he  devoted  every  moment  of  his  spare 
time  to  zoology. 

He  first  travelled  along  all  the  rivers  of  Middle 
and  Eastern  China  to  classify  the  fresh-water  molluscs 
of  those  regions.  On  this  subject  alone  he  published 
ten  illustrated  volumes  between  1876  and  1885.  His 
treatise  "  Les  Mollusques  terrestres  de  la  vall£e  du 
Fleuve  Bleu  "  is  today  the  authority  on  that  subject. 


Colleges  835 

He  then  directed  his  attention  particularly  to  the 
systematic  and  geographical  propagation  of  Eastern 
Asiatic  species  of  mammals,  as  well  as  to  a  com- 
parative morphology  of  classes  and  family  groups, 
according  to  tooth  and  skeleton  formations.  His 
fitness  for  the  work  was  furthered  by  his  extremely 
keen  eye,  his  accurate  memory,  and  the  enormous 
wealth  of  material  which  he  had  accumulated,  partly 
in  the  course  of  his  early  travels  and  partly  in  later 
expeditions,  which  carried  him  in  all  directions.  These 
expeditions  covered  chiefly  the  eight  years  from  1892 
to  1900.  They  took  him  to  the  Philippines  which  he 
visited  three  times;  to  Singapore,  Batavia,  the  Celebes, 
the  Moluccas,  New  Guinea,  Japan,  Vladivostock, 
Cochin-China,  Cambodia,  Siam,  and  Tongking.  He 
carried  on  his  work  with  absolute  independence  of 
method.  He  contented  himself  with  the  facts  before 
him  and  sought  little  assistance  from  authorities;  nor 
did  he  fear  to  deduce  theoretical  conclusions  from  his 
own  observations  which  flatly  contradicted  other 
authorities.  He  continued  his  scientific  work  until 
shortly  before  his  death  which  occurred  at  Zikawei 
on  January  3,  1902.  (The  Catholic  Encyclopedia, 
VII,  308.) 

Albers  in  his  "  Liber  Saecularis  "  maintains  that 
"  in  the  cultivation  of  the  natural  sciences,  the  restored 
Society  won  greater  fame  than  the  old,"  and  that 
"  a  glance  at  the  men  whom  the  Italian  provinces 
alone  have  produced  would  be  sufficient  to  convince 
the  doubter.  Angelo  Secchi,  of  course,  stands  out 
most  prominently,  and  a  little  later  Father  Barello, 
who  with  the  Barnabite  Denza  established  the  Meteoro- 
logical Observatory  of  Malta.  Giambattista  Pianciani 
was  regarded  with  the  greatest  veneration  in  Rome 
because  of  his  vast  erudition  as  a  scientist,  as  were 
Caraffa,  Mancini  and  Foligni  for  their  knowledge  of 


836  The  Jesuits 

mathematics.  March!  was  the  man  who  trained 
the  illustrious  de  Rossi,  as  an  archaeologist,  and  also 
the  Jesuit  Raffaele  Garrucci  whose  "  Monumenta 
delle  arte  cristiane  primitive  nella  metropoli  del 
Cristianesimo  "  laid  the  foundations  of  the  new  study 
of  archaeology.  The  writings  of  Father  Gondi  and 
Francis  Tongiorgi  have  also  contributed  much  to 
advancement  in  those  fields  of  knowledge. 

Faustino  Arevalo  was  one  of  the  exiles  from  Spain 
at  the  time  of  the  Suppression.  He  was  born  at 
Campanario  in  Estremadura  in  1747,  and  entered  the 
Society  in  1761.  Six  years  afterwards  he  was  deported 
to  Italy  by  Charles  III.  In  Rome  he  won  the  esteem 
and  confidence  of  Cardinal  Lorenzano,  who  proved  to 
be  his  Maecenas  by  bearing  the  expense  of  Arevalo's 
learned  publications.  He  was  held  in  high  honor  in 
Rome,  and  was  appointed  to  various  offices  of  trust, 
among  them  that  of  pontifical  hymnographer  and 
theologian  of  the  penitenziaria,  thus  succeeding  the 
illustrious  Muzzarelli.  When  the  Society  was  re- 
stored, he  returned  to  Spain  and  was  made  provincial 
of  Castile.  One  of  his  works  was  the  "  Hymnodia 
hispanica,"  a  restoration  of  ancient  Spanish  hymns  to 
their  original  metrical,  musical  and  grammatical 
perfection.  This  publication  was  much  esteemed  by 
Cardinal  Mai  and  Dom  Gueranger.  It  was  accom- 
panied by  a  curious  dissertation  on  the  Breviary  of 
Cardinal  Quignonez.  He  also  edited  the  poems  of 
Prudentius  and  Dracontius  and  those  of  a  fifth  century 
Christian  of  Roman  Africa.  Besides  this,  he  has 
to  his  credit  four  volumes  of  Jouvancy's  "  Gospel 
History,"  the  works  of  Sedulius  and  St.  Isidore  and 
a  Gothic  Missal.  He  stands  in  the  forefront  of  Spanish 
patristic  scholars,  and  has  shed  great  lustre  on  the 
Church  of  Spain  by  his  vast  learning,  fine  literary 


Colleges  837 

taste  and  patriotic  devotion  to  the  Christian  writers 
of  his  fatherland. 

The  founder  of  the  science  of  archaeology,  according 
to  Hurter,  was  Stefano  Antonio  Morcelli.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  old  Society  and  re-entered  it  when 
it  was  restored.  Even  before  the  Suppression,  which 
occurred  twenty  years  after  his  entrance,  he  had 
established  an  archaeological  section  in  the  Kircher 
Museum  of  Rome.  When  he  found  himself  homeless, 
in  consequence  of  the  publication  of  the  Brief  of 
Clement  XIV,  he  was  made  the  librarian  of  Cardinal 
Albani.  He  refused  the  Archbishopric  of  Ragusa  and 
continued  his  literary  labors  in  Rome.  His  first 
publication  was  "  The  Style  of  Inscriptions."  In  the 
town  of  Chiari,  his  birthplace,  to  which  he  afterwards 
withdrew,  he  founded  an  institution  for  the  education 
of  girls,  reformed  the  entire  school  system,  devoted 
his  splendid  library  to  public  use,  and  restored  many 
buildings  and  churches.  Meantime  his  reputation  as 
master  of  epigraphic  style  increased  and  he  was  placed 
in  a  class  of  his  own  above  all  competitors.  Besides 
his  many  works  on  his  special  subject,  he  gave  to  the 
world  five  volumes  of  sermons  and  ascetic  treatises. 
When  the  Society  was  re-established  he  again  took  his 
place  in  its  ranks,  and  died  in  Brescia  in  1822  at  the 
age  of  eighty-four.  Hurter  classifies  him  as  also 
a  historian  and  geographer. 

Nor  was  Morcelli  an  exception.  Fathers  Arthur 
Martin  and  Charles  Cahier  are  still  of  great  authority 
as  archaeologists,  chiefly  for  their  monograph  in  which, 
as  government  officials,  they  described  the  Cathedral 
of  Bourges;  and  likewise  for  their  "  Melanges  arche- 
ologiques,"  in  which  the  sacred  vessels,  enamels  and 
other  treasures  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  of  Cologne  are 
discussed.  They  also  wrote  on  the  antique  ivories 


838  The  Jesuits 

of  Bamberg,  Ratisbon,  Munich  and  London;  on 
the  Byzantine  and  Arabian  weavings;  and  on  the 
paintings  and  the  mysterious  bas-reliefs  of  the  Roman 
and  Carlovingian  periods.  Their  works  appeared 
between  1841  and  1848. 

A  very  famous  Jesuit  archaeologist  died  only  a  few 
years  ago,  and  the  French  government  which  had  just 
expelled  the  Jesuits  erected  a  monument  at  Poitiers 
to  perpetuate  his  memory.  He  was  Father  Camille 
de  la  Croix.  He  was  a  scion  of  the  old  Flemish  nobility 
and  was  born  in  the  Chateau  Saint- Aubert,  near 
Tournai  in  Belgium,  but  he  passed  nearly  all  his  life 
in  France,  and  hence  Frenchmen  considered  him  as 
one  of  their  own.  He  got  his  first  schooling  in  Bruge- 
lette,  and,  when  that  college  was  given  up,  went  with 
his  old  masters  to  France.  In  1877  we  find  him 
mentioned  in  the  catalogue  as  a  teacher  and  writer 
of  music.  Three  years  later,  the  French  provinces  had 
been  dispersed  by  the  government,  and  he  was  then 
docketed  as  an  archaeologist  at  the  former  Jesuit 
college  of  Poitiers. 

De  la  Croix's  success  as  a  discoverer  was  marvellous. 
Near  Poitiers  he  found  vast  Roman  baths,  five  acres 
in  extent,  whose  existence  had  never  even  been  sus- 
pected. There  were  tombs  of  Christian  martyrs;  a 
wonderful  crypt  dating  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era;  a  temple  dedicated  to  Mercury,  with  its 
sacred  wells,  votive  vases  etc.  At  Sauxay,  nineteen 
miles  from  Poitiers,  he  unearthed  the  ruins  of  an 
entire  Roman  colony;  a  veritable  Pompeii  with  its 
temple  of  Apollo,  its  theatres,  its  palaces,  its  baths  etc. 
He  had  the  same  success  at  Nantes,  Saint-Philibert, 
and  Berthouville ;  —  the  French  government  supplying 
him  with  the  necessary  funds.  The  "  Gaulois  "  said 
of  him  that  "  in  his  first  ten  years  he  discovered  more 
monuments  than  would  have  made  twenty  archae- 


Colleges  839 

ologists  famous."  Meantime  he  lived  in  a  wooden 
cabin,  on  the  banks  of  the  Clain,  and  there  he  died 
at  the  age  of  eighty,  on  April  14,  1900;  and  there  also 
the  French  government  built  his  monument.  At  the 
dedication,  all  the  scientific  men  of  the  country  were 
present,  and  the  King  of  Belgium  sent  a  representative. 

Although  the  well-known  Francois  Moigno  severed 
his  connection  with  the  Society,  it  was  only  after 
he  had  achieved  greatness  while  yet  in  its  ranks.  He 
entered  the  novitiate  on  September  2,  1822,  when  he 
was  eighteen  years  of  age.  He  made  his  theological 
studies  at  Montrouge,  and  in  his  spare  moments  devoted 
himself  to  the  study  of  the  natural  sciences.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution  of  1830,  he  went  with  his 
brethren  to  Brieg  in  Switzerland,  where  he  took  up. 
the  study  of  languages,  chiefly  Hebrew  and  Arabic. 
When  the  troubles  subsided  in  France  he  was  appointed 
professor  of  mathematics  in  Paris  at  the  Rue  des,  Postes, 
and  became  widely  known  as  a  man  of  unusual  attain- 
ments. He  was  on  intimate  terms  with  Cauchy, 
Arago,  Ampere  and  others.  He  was  engaged  on  one  of 
his  best  known  works:  "  Lemons  de  calcul  differen- 
tiel  et  de  calcul  integral  "  and  had  already  published 
the  first  volume  when  he  left  the  Society.  He  had 
been  a  Jesuit  for  twenty-one  years.  He  was  then 
made  chaplain  of  Louis-le-Grand,  one  of  the  famous 
colleges  owned  by  the  Jesuits  before  the  Suppression, 
and  became  the  scientific  editor  of  "La  Presse  "  in 
1850;  of  "  Le  Pays"  in  1851,  and  in  the  following 
year,  founded  the  well-known  scientific  journal  "  Cos- 
mos," followed  by  "  Les  Mondes  "  in  1862,  editing 
meanwhile  ' '  Les  Actualites  scientifiques. "  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  was  the  Society  that  had  formed  him  and 
enabled  him  to  publish  his  greatest  works. 

The  German,  Father  Ludwig  Dressel,  who  was  for 
many  years  the  director  of  the  Polytechnic  in  Quito,  is 


840  The  Jesuits 

well-known  for  his  treatises  on  geology,  chemistry  and 
physics.  Kramers,  in  Holland,  is  the  author  of  three 
volumes  on  chemistry.  In  entomology,  Father  Erich 
Wasmann  is  among  the  masters  of  today,  and  has  written 
a  series  of  works  which  have  elicited  the  applause 
of  the  scientific  world,  especially  his  "  Die  moderne 
Biologic  und  die  Entwicklungstheorie."  (Modern 
Biology  and  the  Theory  of  Evolution.)  The  writings 
of  Bolsius  on  biology  won  for  him  a  membership  in 
the  scientific  societies  of  Russia,  Belgium,  Italy  and 
Holland. 

The  first  meteorological  society,  the  "  Palatina," 
was  founded  by  Father  Johann  Hemmer  in  1780,  and 
it  is  noteworthy  that  nearly  all  its  contributors  were 
members  of  the  various  religious  orders  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  Italy  and  France.  Its  scope  was  not 
restricted  to  the  study  of  meteors,  for  it  accepted 
papers  on  ethnology,  linguistics,  etc.  Hence  we  find 
Father  Dobrizhoffer  writing  to  it  from  Paraguay, 
Joseph  Lafitaux  from  Canada,  Johann  Hanxleden,  the 
Sanscrit  scholar  from  Hindostan,  and  Lorenzo  Hervas. 
Hanxleden  and  his  colleague  Roth  were  the  pioneers 
in  Sanscrit.  The  former  was  the  first  European 
to  write  a  Sanscrit  grammar  and  to  compile  a 
Malabar-Sanscrit-Portuguese  dictionary.  Hervas  was 
one  of  the  Jesuits  expelled  from  Mexico,  and  after 
the  Suppression  was  made  prefect  of  the  Quirinal 
Library  by  Pius  VII.  While  there,  he  worked  in 
conjunction  with  several  of  his  former  brethren  in 
the  compilation  and  composition  of  scientific  works, 
mostly  of  an  ethnological  character.  He  also  wrote 
a  number  of  educational  works  for  deaf  mutes. 

The  Observatory  of  Stonyhurst  dates  back  to  1838- 
39,  when  a  building  consisting  of  an  octagonal  center- 
piece with  four  abutting  structures  was  erected  in 
the  middle  of  the  garden.  But  it  was  not  until  1845 


Colleges  841 

that  a  4-inch  Jones  equatorial  was  mounted  in  its 
dome.  Meteorological  observations  were  begun  as 
early  as  1844,  and  magnetic  in  1856  by  Father  Weld. 
In  1867  an  8-inch  equatorial  was  set  up.  The  chief 
workers  were  Fathers  Stephen  Perry,  Walter  Sidgreaves 
and  Aloysius  Cortie.  All  three  were  members  of 
the  Royal  Astronomical  Society  and  were  frequently 
chosen  to  fill  official  positions.  Father  Perry  achieved 
special  prominence.  He  was  the  director  from  1860  to 
1862,  and  again  from  1868  till  his  death  in  1889.  He 
was  a  member  of  more  scientific  expeditions  than 
any  other  living  astronomer.  He  was  at  Cadiz  for 
the  solar  eclipse  in  1870;  he  was  sent  as  astronomer 
royal  in  1874  for  the  transit  of  Venus  to  Kerguelen 
or  Desolation  Island,  and  for  another  observation  to 
Madagascar  in  1882.  In  1886  he  observed  a  total 
eclipse  at  Carriacou  in  the  West  Indies.  For  the 
eclipse  of  1887  he  was  sent  to  Russia,  and  for  that 
of  1889  to  Cayenne.  On  the  latter  expedition  he  was 
attacked  by  a  pestilential  fever  and  died  on  board 
the  warship  "  Comus"  off  Georgetown,  Demerara, 
after  receiving  the  last  sacraments  from  a  French 
Abbe  resident  in  Georgetown.  Father  Perry  was 
buried  there  in  the  cathedral  cemetery.  His  death 
was  that  of  a  saint,  and  a  touching  account  of  it  has 
been  left  by  his  assistant,  a  Jesuit  lay -brother. 

Father  Perry's  prominence  in  the  scientific  world 
may  be  judged  by  the  honors  bestowed  upon  him. 
He  was  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  and  a  member 
of  the  Council;  also  a  member  and  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Astronomical  Society  and,  shortly  before  he 
died,  he  had  been  proposed  as  Vice-President.  At  the 
time  of  his  death  he  held  the  post  of  President  of  the 
Liverpool  Astronomical  Society.  He  was  a  Fellow 
of  the  Royal  Meteorological  Society,  a  member  of  the 
Physical  Society  of  London,  and  an  associate  of  the 


842  The  Jesuits 

Papal  Academy  of  the  Nuovi  Lincei,  the  oldest 
scientific  society  in  Europe.  He  belonged  also  to  the 
Societe  Geographiqu.e  of  Antwerp,  and  had  received 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Science  honoris  causa  from  the 
Royal  University  of  Ireland.  For  several  years  before 
his  death,  he  served  on  the  committee  of  the  council 
on  education,  as  well  as  on  the  committee  for  compar- 
ing and  reducing  magnetic  observations,  for  which 
work  he  had  been  appointed  by  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  a  body  of  which  he  was 
a  life-member.  In  1887  and  1889  he  attended  at 
Paris  the  meetings  of  the  Astrographic  Congress  for 
the  photographic  charting  of  the  heavens. 

In  the  "  Monthly  Notices  "  of  the  Royal  Astronomical 
Society  (L,  iv)  the  following  resolution  appears  on 
the  occasion  of  his  death:  "  The  Council  having  heard 
with  the  deepest  regret  of  the  death  of  the  Rev.  S.  J. 
Perry  while  on  the  Society's  expedition  to  observe 
the  total  eclipse  at  the  Salut  Islands,  desire  to  put 
on  record  their  sense  of  the  great  loss  which  astronomy 
has  suffered  by  the  death  of  so  enthusiastic  and  capable 
an  observer,  and  to  offer  to  his  relations  and  to  his  col- 
leagues at  Stonyhurst  the  expression  of  their  sincere 
sympathy  and  condolence  on  this  sad  event."  The 
list  of  his  scientific  papers  covers  twelve  pages  of  his 
biography.  Father  Cortie,  his  associate  in  the  Stony- 
hurst  Observatory,  says  of  him:  "  His  death  was 
glorious,  for  he  died  a  victim  to  his  sense  of  duty 
and  his  zeal  for  science.  Truly  he  may  lay  claim  to 
the  title  of  '  martyr  of  science,'  and  a  part  of  the 
story  of  the  eclipse  of  December  22,  1889,  will  be  the 
account  of  how  Father  Perry  was  carried  from  a  sick 
bed  to  take  his  last  observation." 

Besides  the  Observatories  in  Granada  and  Ofia  the 
Spanish  Jesuits  have  another  near  Tortosa.  The 
main  object  of  the  latter  is  the  study  of  terrestrial 


Colleges  843 

magnetism,  seismology,  meteorology,  study  of  the  sun, 
etc.  It  has  five  separate  buildings  and  a  valuable 
periodical  regularly  published  by  the  observers. 

The  Zo-se  Observatory  near  Zikawei  in  China  is  in 
charge  of  the  French  Fathers.  The  Observatory  is 
about  80  feet  in  length.  It  has  a  library  of  20,000 
volumes  with  numerous  and  valuable  Chinese  manu- 
scripts. They  have  another  station  in  Madagascar, 
which  is  4,600  feet  above  sea-level,  and  consequently 
higher  by  100  metres  than  the  Lick  Observatory  in 
California.  When  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from 
Madagascar,  the  Observatory  was  demolished  by 
the  natives  who  thought  it  was  a  fortress.  It  was 
rebuilt  later  at  the  expense  of  the  French  government 
and  the  director,  Father  Colin,  was  made  a  corre- 
sponding Member  of  the  French  Academy.  In  1890, 
1895,  1898  and  1899  the  observers  were  honored  by 
their  home  government  with  purses  of  considerable 
value,  one  being  of  6,000  and  another  of  3,000 
francs. 

There  are  other  observatories  at  Calcutta,  Rhodesia, 
Feldkirch,  Louvain,  Oudenbosch  (Holland),  Puebla 
(Mexico),  Havana,  Woodstock  and  other  Jesuit  col- 
leges in  the  United  States ;  these  are  attracting  notice 
principally  by  their  seismograhical  reports.  The 
most  conspicuous  of  all  these  North  American 
observatories  is  that  of  Georgetown  which  was  founded 
in  1842-43,  about  the  same  time  as  the  Naval  Obser- 
vatory. It  was  built  under  the  direction  of  Father 
Curley,  whose  determination  of  the  longitude  of  Wash- 
ington in  conjunction  with  Sir  G.  B.  Airy,  the  Astrono- 
mer Royal  of  Greenwich,  England,  was  made  by 
observing  a  series  of  transits  of  the  moon,  and  was 
later  shown  by  the  electric  telegraph  to  have  been 
correct  to  within  the  tenth  of  a  second.  Fathers  De 
Vico,  Sestini  and  Secchi  labored  at  Georgetown. 


844  The  Jesuits 

Secchi's  "  Researches  in  Electrical  Rheometry  "  was 
published  in  1852  by  the  Smithsonian  Institute.  It 
was  his  first  literary  contribution  to  science.  Sestini's 
drawings  of  the  sun  spots  were  published  by  the  Naval 
Observatory.  In  1889  Father  Hagen,  then  the  director, 
published  his  "Atlas  stellarum  variabilium."  In 
1890  Father  Fargis  solved  the  question  of  "  the  personal 
equation  "  in  astronomical  observations  by  his  invention 
of  the  Photochronograph.  It  had  been  attempted  by 
Father  Braun  in  Kalocsa  (Hungary)  and  by  Repsola 
in  Konigsberg,  but  both  failed.  Professors  Pickering 
and  Bigelow  in  the  United  States  had  also  given  it  up, 
but  Father  Fargis  solved  the  difficulty  by  a  fixed 
photographic  plate  and  a  narrow  metal  tongue  attached 
to  the  armature  of  an  electric  magnet.  It  has  proved 
satisfactory  in  every  test. 

In  Sommervogel's  "  Bibliotheque  "  the  list  of  the 
astronomical  works  written  by  Secchi  covers  nineteen 
pages  quarto,  in  double  columns.  He  was  equally 
active  in  physics  and  meteorology  and  his  large  mete- 
orograph described  in  Ganot's  "  Physics  "  merited  for 
him  the  Grand  Prix  (100,000  francs)  and  the  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor  at  the  Paris  Universal  Exposi- 
tion in  1867.  It  was  conferred  upon  him  by  the  hand 
of  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Emperors  of  Russia  and  Austria  and  the  Kings  of 
Prussia  and  Belgium.  The  Emperor  of  Brazil  sent 
him  a  golden  rose  as  a  token  of  appreciation. 

The  "  Atlas  stellarum  variabilium "  by  Father 
Johann  Hagen  is  according  to  "  Popular  Astronomy  " 
(n.  81,  p.  50)  the  most  important  event  in  the  star 
world.  Ernst  Harturg  (V.  J.  S.,  vol.  35)  says:  "It 
will  without  doubt  become  in  time  an  indispensable 
requisite  of  the  library  of  every  observatory  just  as 
the  Bonn  maps  have  become."  Father  Hagen  has 
also  won  distinction  in  the  mathematical  world  by  his 


Colleges  845 

"  Synopsis  der  hoheren  Mathematik,"  in  four  volumes 
quarto. 

The  seismological  department  of  Georgetown,  under 
Father  Francis  A.  Tondorf ,  has  attained  an  especial 
prominence  in  the  United  States.  Its  equipment  is 
of  the  latest  perfection,  and  its  earthquake  reports 
are  those  most  commonly  quoted  in  the  daily  press  of 
America. 

Important  in  their  own  sphere  are  the  books  "  Astro- 
nomisches  aus  Babylon  "  by  Fathers  Joseph  Epping 
and  Johann  Nepomuk  Strassmaier,  and  "  Die  babylon- 
ische  Mondrechnung "  by  Epping.  F.  K.  Ginzel 
(in  V.  J.  S.,  vol.  35.)  expresses  the  following  opinion  of 
them:  "  It  is  well  known  that  the  investigations  made 
by  the  Jesuit  Father  Epping,  in  conjunction  with  the 
Assyriologist  Father  Strassmaier,  upon  many  Baby- 
lonian astronomical  bricks  have  had  as  a  consequence 
that  the  scientific  level  upon  which  the  history  of 
astronomy  had  formerly  placed  the  Babylonians 
must  be  taken  considerably  higher.  Epping's  investi- 
gations now  receive  a  very  valuable  extension  through 
the  labor  of  Father  Kugher  of  Valkenburg,  Holland. 
From  the  communications  received  concerning  Kugher 's 
work  the  importance  of  his  book  to  the  history  of 
astronomy  may  be  inferred." 

11  Die  Gravitations-Constante  "  (Vienna,  1896),  by 
Father  Carl  Braun  of  Mariaschein,  Bohemia,  represents 
about  eight  years  of  patient  work,  and  according  to 
Poynting  (Proc.  of  the  Royal  Soc.  Inst.  of  Great  Britain, 
XVI,  2)  "  bears  internal  evidence  of  great  care  and 
accuracy.  He  obtained  almost  exactly  the  same  result 
as  Professor  Boys  with  regard  to  the  earth's  mean 
density.  Father  Braun  carried  on  his  work  far  from 
the  usual  mechanical  laboratory  facilities  and  had  to 
make  much  of  the  apparatus  himself.  His  patience 
and  persistence  command  our  highest  admiration." 


846  The  Jesuits 

With  regard  to  the  "  Kosmogonie  vom  Standpunkte 
christlicher  Wissenschaft,"  by  Father  Braun,  Dr. 
Foster  says:  (V.  J.  S.,  vol.  25)  "  this  problem,  mighty 
in  every  aspect,  is  treated  from  all  points  of  view  with 
clearness  and  impressiveness.  One  could  hardly  find 
at  this  time  in  any  other  book  all  the  essential  features 
of  a  theory  of  the  sun  collected  together  in  such  a 
directive  manner." 

Perhaps  the  famous  phrase  of  St.  Ignatius,  Quam 
sordet  tellus  quum  cesium  aspicio,  had  something  to  do 
with  the  Society's  passion  for  astronomy.  "  How 
sordid  the  earth  is  when  I  look  at  the  sky."  His  sons 
have  been  looking  at  the  sky  from  the  beginning  not 
only  spiritually  but  through  telescopes,  and  many  of 
them  have  become  famous  as  astronomers.  This  is 
all  the  more  notable,  because  star-gazing  was  only  a 
secondary  object  with  them.  They  were  first  of  all 
priests  and  scientific  men  afterwards.  As  early  as 
1591  Father  Perrerin,  in  his  "  Divinatio  astrologica," 
denounced  astrology  as  a  superstition  although  his 
Protestant  friend,  the  great  Kepler,  did  not  admit  the 
distinction  between  it  and  astronomy.  The  book  of 
Perrerin's  went  through  five  editions.  Father  de 
Angelis  published  in  1604  five  volumes  entitled  "  In 
astrologos  conjectores  "  (Against  astrological  guessers). 
As  late  as  1676,  the  work  was  still  in  demand,  for 
illustrious  personages  like  Rudolph  II,  Wallenstein, 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  Catherine  de'  Medici  and  even 
Luther  and  Melanchthon  with  a  host  of  others  were 
continually  having  their  horoscopes  taken. 

Another  eminent  worker  was  Father  Riccioli,  of 
whom  we  read:  "  If  you  want  to  know  the  ancient 
follies  on  this  point  consult  Riccioli."  (Littrois  in 
"  Wunder  des  Himmels,"  1886,  604.)  The  implication 
might  be  that  Riccioli  approved  of  them,  but  the  reverse 
is  the  case,  for,  as  Thomas  Aquinas  furnishes  a  list  of 


Colleges  847 

every  actual  and  almost  every  possible  theological 
and  philosophical  error,  but  after  each  adds  videtur 
quod  non,  which  he  follows  up  by  a  refutation,  so 
does  Riccioli  in  his  Astrology.  He  was  a  genius.  He 
became  a  Jesuit  when  he  was  sixteen,  and  for  years 
never  thought  of  telescopes.  He  taught  poetry, 
philosophy  and  theology  at  Parma  and  Bologna, 
and  took  up  astronomy  only  when  his  superiors  assigned 
him  to  that  study.  Being  an  Italia'n,  he  did  not  like 
Copernicus  or  Kepler.  They  were  from  the  Protestant 
North  and  had  refused  to  accept  the  Gregorian  Calen- 
dar. He  admitted,  indeed,  that  the  Copernican 
system  was  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  simple,  the 
best  conceived,  but  not  solid,  so  he  made  one  of  his 
own,  but  did  not  adhere  to  it  tenaciously. 

Appreciating  the  deficiencies  of  the  astronomy  of  the 
ancients,  he  composed  the  famous  "  Almagestum 
novum,"  which  placed  the  whole  science  on  a  new 
basis.  Beginning  by  the  measurement  of  the  earth,  he 
produced,  though  he  made  mistakes,  the  first  meteoro- 
log-system.  His  lunar  observations  revealed  600  spots 
on  the  moon,  which  is  fifty  more  than  had  been  found 
by  Hevelius.  His  collaborator,  Grimaldi,  the  greatest 
mathematician  of  his  age,  made  the  maps.  His  remarks 
on  libration  fill  an  entire  volume,  and  the  writer  in 
the  "  Biographic  universelle  "  gives  him  the  credit  of 
experimenting  on  the  oscillations  of  the  pendulum  before 
Galileo.  His  health  was  always  poor,  but  he  worked 
like  a  giant.  His  "  Almagestum  "  consists  of  1500 
folio  pages,  and  is  described  as  a  treasure  of  astro- 
nomical erudition.  Lalande  quotes  from  it  continually. 
His  "  Astronomia  reformata "  is  in  two  volumes 
folio,  and  he  has  twelve  folio  volumes  on  geography 
and  hydrography.  Its  learning  is  astounding.  Thus, 
for  instance,  in  the  second  part  of  his  "  Chronologia" 
there  is  a  list  of  the  principal  events  from  the  creation 


848  The  Jesuits 

to  the  year  1688,  along  with  the  names  of  kings,  patri- 
archs, nations,  heresies,  councils,  and  great  personages, 
which  was  really  collateral  matter. 

What  the  Jesuit  astronomers  accomplished  in  China 
from  the  time  of  Ricci  down  to  Hallerstein  in  1774  has 
been  continued  there  to  the  present  day.  The  first 
government  observatory  in  Europe  was  erected  in  the 
University  of  Vienna,  then  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits. 
There  were  others  at  Vilna,  Schwetzingen  and  Mann- 
heim. Twelve  other  private  ones  had  been  built  in 
the  various  European  colleges  of  the  Society.  The 
establishment  of  these  observatories  was  providential, 
for  when  the  Society  was  suppressed  they  afforded 
occupation  and  support  to  a  great  number  of  dispersed 
Jesuits,  who  remained  in  charge  of  them  during  their 
forty  years  of  homelessness  and  kept  alive  the  old 
spirit  of  the  Order  in  its  affection  for  that  particular 
study.  As  in  the  old  Society  this  work  is  still  a  matter  of 
private  enterprise.  As  far  as  we  are  aware  there  is 
only  one  observatory  where  a  government  assists, 
the  Observatory  of  Manila,  in  which  the  employees 
are  salaried  by  the  United  States  government.  The 
equipment  itself,  however,  was  provided  by  the  Jesuits, 
who  reduced  their  living  expenses  to  the  minimum 
in  order  to  build  the  house  and  buy  the  instruments. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  actual  Jesuit 
observatories  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term  already 
rivals  that  of  the  old  Society.  The  Roman  establish- 
ment which  had  been  made  famous  by  Scheiner, 
Gottignes,  Asclepi,  Borgondius,  Maire  and  Boscovich 
was  continued  during  the  Suppression  by  the  secular 
priest  Calandrelli.  In  1824  Leo  XII  restored  it  to  the 
Society,  and  Father  Dumouchel  took  charge  of  it 
with  De  Vico  as  an  assistant.  The  latter 's  reputation 
was  European.  He  was  known  as  the  Comet  Chaser, 
for  he  had  discovered  eight  of  them.  The  well-known 


Colleges  849 

five  and  a  half  years  periodic  comet  bears  his  name. 
He  succeeded  Dumouchel  as  director  in  1840,  and  was 
holding  that  office  when  the  Revolution  of  1 848  drove  the 
Jesuits  from  Rome.  He  was  received  with  great 
enthusiasm  in  France  by  Arago,  and  in  England  he 
was  offered  the  directorship  of  the  Observatory  of 
Madras  but  he  preferred  to  go  to  Georgetown  in  the 
United  States.  Being  called  to  London  on  business, 
he  died  there  on  November  15,  1848,  at  the  age  of  43. 
Herschel  wrote  his  obituary  in  the  "  Notices  of  the 
Astronomical  Society." 

Secchi  had  gone  with  De  Vico  to  Georgetown,  but  was 
recalled  to  Rome  in  1849  by  Pius  IX,  and  given 
charge  of  the  observatory.  He  was  born  at  Reggio  in 
1818,  and,  after  studying  in  the  Jesuit  college  there, 
entered  the  Society  at  the  age  of  sixteen.  He  began 
as  a  tutor  in  physics  and  continued  at  that  work  when 
he  went  to  Georgetown.  Astronomy  had  as  yet  not 
appealed  to  him,  but  in  Washington  he  met  the  famous 
hydrographer,  meteorologist  and  astronomer,  Maury, 
and  a  deep  affection  sprang  up  between  them,  and 
Secchi  dedicated  one  of  his  books  to  his  American 
friend.  His  appointment  to  the  Roman  Observatory  in 
1859  was  due  to  the  recommendation  of  De  Vico,  and 
in  two  years  his  brilliant  success  as  an  observer  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  scientific  world.  He  began  by  a 
revision  of  Struve's  "  Catalogue  of  Double  Stars," 
which  necessitated  seven  years'  strenuous  work,  and 
he  was  able  to  verify  10,000  of  the  entries.  Meantime 
he  was  studying  the  physical  condition  of  Saturn, 
Jupiter,  Mars  and  the  four  great  moons  of  Jupiter. 
In  1852  the  moon  became  the  special  object  of  his 
investigations,  and  his  micrometrical  map  of  the  great 
crater  was  so  exact  that  the  Royal  Society  of  London 
had  numerous  photographs  made  of  it.  In  1859  he 
published  his  great  work  "II  quadro  fisico  del  sistema 

54 


850  The  Jesuits 

solare  secondo  il  piu  recent!  osservazioni."  The  study 
of  the  sun  spots  was  his  favorite  task,  and  his  expedition 
to  Spain  in  1860  to  observe  the  total  eclipse  established 
the  fact  that  the  red  protuberances  around  the  edge  of 
the  eclipsed  sun  were  real  features  of  the  sun  itself  and 
not  optical  illuminations  or  illuminated  mountains  of 
the  moon.  He  began  the  "  Sun  Records  "  in  Rome, 
and  they  are  kept  up  till  this  day.  No  other  observatory 
has  anything  like  them.  All  this,  with  his  inventions, 
and  the  study  of  the  spectroscope,  heliospectroscope 
and  telespectroscope,  besides  the  mass  of  scientific 
results  which  he  arrived  at,  has  put  him  in  the  very 
first  rank  of  astronomers.  He  was  equally  conspicuous 
as  a  meteorologist  and  a  physicist.  When  the  Pied- 
montese  took  Rome,  Secchi  was  offered  the  rank  of 
senator  and  the  superintendency  of  all  the  observatories 
of  Italy  if  he  would  leave  the  Society.  Of  course  he 
scoffed  at  the  proposal;  but  his  authority  in  Italy  was 
so  great  that  the  invaders  did  not  dare  to  expel  him 
from  his  observatory.  He  died  in  1878. 

Clerke  says  of  him:  "  The  effective  founders  of 
stellar  photography  were  Father  Secchi,  the  eminent 
Jesuit  astronomer  of  the  Collegio  Romano,  and  Dr. 
Huggins  with  whom  the  late  Professor  Mullen  was 
associated.  The  work  of  each  was  happily  made  to 
supplement  that  of  the  other.  With  less  perfect 
appliances,  the  Roman  astronomer  sought  to  render 
his  work  extensive  rather  than  precise;  whereas,  at 
Upper  Tulse  Hill,  searching  accuracy  over  a  narrower 
guage  was  aimed  at  and  attained.  To  Father  Secchi 
is  due  the  merit  of  having  executed  the  first  spectroscope 
view  of  the  heavens.  Above  4000  stars  were  all 
passed  in  review  by  him  and  classified  according  to  the 
varying  qualities  of  their  light.  His  provisional 
establishment  (1863-7)  of  four  types  of  stellar  spectra 


Colleges  851 

has  proved  a  genuine  aid  to  knowledge,  through  the 
facilities  afforded  by  it  for  the  arrangement  and  com- 
parison of  rapidly  accumulating  facts.  Moreover  it 
is  scarcely  doubtful  that  these  spectral  distinctions 
correspond  to  differences  in  physical  conditions  of  a 
marked  kind." 

"  I  saw  the  great  man,"  said  one  who  was  in  the 
audience  of  the  splendid  hall  of  the  Cancelleria,  "  when 
he  was  giving  a  course  on  the  solar  spectrum.  The 
vast  auditorium  was  crowded  with  a  brilliant  throng  in 
which  you  could  see  cardinals,  archbishops,  monsignori 
and  laymen,  all  representing  the  highest  religious, 
diplomatic  and  scientific  circles.  Though  an  Italian, 
Secchi  spoke  in  French  that  was  absolutely  perfect. 
Everyone  was  enthralled,  but  what  captivated  me 
was  the  gentleness  and  even  deference  with  which  he 
spoke  to  the  men  who  were  adjusting  the  screens.  He 
almost  seemed  to  be  their  servant  and  I  could  not  help 
saying  to  myself,  '  Oh!  I  love  you.'  I  saw  him  later 
in  the  street.  It  was  in  the  turbulent  days  of  the 
Italian  occupation.  He  was  walking  alone;  his  head 
slightly  bowed.  Suddenly  the  cry  was  heard :  '  Death 
to  the  Jesuits!'  and  an  excited  mob  was  seen  rushing 
towards  him.  He  stood  still;  grasped  the  stout  stick 
in  his  hand,  glared  at  them;  and  they  fled.  I  never 
saw  anything  like  it.  I  loved  him  before.  I  adored 
him  now."  In  brief,  Secchi  was  a  great  man  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  but  he  was  a  greater  religious. 
Indeed  it  is  said  that  when  his  superiors  told  him  to 
apply  himself  to  mathematics  he  burst  into  tears. 
He  wanted  to  be  a  missionary.  He  was  such,  while 
being  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
men  in  the  scientific  world. 

The  Manila  Observatory  in  the  Philippines,  strictly 
speaking,  began  its  meteorological  service  in  1865, 


852  The  Jesuits 

though  observations  had  been  made  many  years  previ- 
ously. In  1 88 1  it  was  officially  approved  by  the  Spanish 
government  and  in  1901  by  that  of  the  United  States. 
The  meteorological  importance  and  efficiency  of  the 
Manila  Observatory  overshadows  its  astronomical,  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  situated  in  the  eastern  typhoon 
path.  Astronomy,  however,  is  by  no  means  neglected. 
From  1880  up  to  the  present  time  it  has  rendered  very 
valuable  services  to  the  world.  First,  the  official  time 
was  given  to  the  city  of  Manila  and,  after  the  American 
occupation,  it  was  extended  to  all  the  telegraph  stations 
throughout  the  islands.  Secondly,  about  one  hundred 
ship  chronometers  are  annually  compared  and  rated  at 
the  Observatory  free  of  charge. 

In  1894  Father  Jose  Algue  began  to  complete  the 
astronomical  equipment  and  erected  a  new  building 
at  the  cost  of  $40,000,  equipping  it  with  instruments  of 
the  latest  and  best  type.  Three  years  later  he  was 
given  charge  of  the  whole  establishment,  and  is  now 
rendering  immense  and  indispensable  service  to  the 
shipping  interests  of  the  Far  East  by  his  weather 
predictions.  His  barocyclonometer  is  carried  on  every 
ship  in  those  waters.  In  1900  he  was  sent  to  Washing- 
ton by  the  United  States  government  to  supervise 
the  printing  of  his  immense  work  entitled  "  El  Archi- 
pielago  Filipino,"  and  he  gave  later  to  the  World's 
Fair  at  St.  Louis  one  of  its  remarkable  exhibits, —  a 
relief  map  covering  a  great  expanse  on  the  ground  and 
representing  every  island,  river,  bay,  cape,  peninsula, 
volcano,  village  and  city  of  the  Archipelago.  Previous 
to  his  appointment  in  Manila  Father  Algue  had  worked 
for  several  years  in  the  Georgetown  Observatory. 

In  the  matter  of  the  theological  teaching  it  will  suffice 
to  note  that  the  Collegium  Germanicum  was  given  back 
to  the  Society  in  1829  and  entrusted  to  Father  Aloysius 


Colleges  853 

Landes  as  rector.  The  German  government  for  some 
time  forbade  German  students  to  attend  its  classes, 
but  in  1848  there  were  251  on  the  roster.  Since  it 
opened  its  doors  to  the  present  day,  it  has  given  to 
the  Church  4  cardinals,  4  archbishops,  u  bishops, 
3  coadjutor  bishops,  i  vicar  Apostolic,  besides  a  number 
of  distinguished  professors,  canons  and  priests. 

A  very  notable  recognition  of  the  Society  in  the 
field  of  education  was  given  by  Pius  IX,  when  he 
confided  to  it  the  government  of  the  college  known  as 
the  Pium  Latinum.  The  distinguished  ecclesiastic 
who  suggested  it  was  the  Apostolic  prothonotary, 
Jose  Ignacio  Eyzaguirre,  a  Chilian  by  birth.  The 
college  was  founded  in  1858  to  prepare  a  body  of  learned 
priests  for  the  various  countries  of  South  America. 
In  1908  at  its  golden  jubilee  it  could  show  a  record 
not  only  of  distinguished  priests  but  of  a  cardinal, 
Joachim  Arcoverde  de  Albuquerque  Cavalcanti,  and 
of  30  bishops,  though  it  began  with  only  15  students. 
The  house  that  first  sheltered  them  was  extremely 
small,  but  the  Pope  saw  to  it  that  they  had  a  larger 
establishment.  While  urging  the  bishops  of  Latin 
America  to  support  it  liberally  —  for  having  been 
Apostolic  delegate  in  Chili  no  one  knew  better  than 
he  the  urgent  necessity  of  such  a  school  —  he  himself 
was  lavish  in  his  gifts  of  money,  books,  vestments, 
etc.  In  1867  a  part  of  the  old  Jesuit  novitiate  was 
purchased  from  the  Government,  and  although  in  1870 
the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  Rome  those  in  the  Pio 
Latino  were  not  disturbed.  In  1884  a  new  site  was 
found  near  the  Vatican  and  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber 
where  there  is  now  a  splendid  college  with  a  capacity 
of  400  students.  In  1905  Cardinal  Vives  y  Tuto 
published  an  Apostolic  Constitution  which  gave  the 
title  "  Pontifical "  to  the  college  and  confided  the 


854  The  Jesuits 

education  in  perpetuum  to  the  Society.  This  Constitu- 
tion had  been  asked  for  by  the  Latin  American  Bishops 
during  the  Council,  it  was  promised  by  Leo  XIII,  and 
finally  realized  by  Pius  X.  When  formally  handed 
over  to  the  Jesuits  there  were  104  alumni  present. 
The  trust  was  accepted  in  the  name  of  Father  General 
by  Father  Caterini,  provincial  of  the  Roman  province. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LITERATURE 

Grammars  and  Lexicons  of  every  tongue  —  Dramas  —  Histories  of 
Literature  —  Cartography  —  Sinology  —  Egyptology  —  Sanscrit  — 
Catholic  Encyclopedia  —  Catalogues  of  Jesuit  Writers  —  Acta  Sanc- 
torum —  Jesuit  Relations  —  Nomenclator  —  Periodicals  —  Philosophy 
—  Dogmatic,  Moral  and  Ascetic  Theology  —  Canon  Law  —  Exegesis. 

THE  literary  activity  of  the  Society  has  always  been 
very  great,  not  only  in  theological,  philosophical  and 
scientific  fields,  but  also  in  those  that  are  specifically 
designated  as  pertaining  to  the  belles  lettres.  Thus, 
under  the  heading  "  Linguistics,"  in  Sommervogel's 
"  Bibliotheca  "  we  find  treatises  on  philology,  the  origin  of 
language,  grammatical  theories,  a  pentaglottic  vocabu- 
lary, a  lexicon  of  twenty-four  languages,  the  first 
language,  etc.  Then  come  the  Classics.  Under 
"  Greek,"  there  are  two  huge  pages  with  the  names  of 
various  grammars;  besides  dictionaries,  exercises  and 
collections  of  old  Greek  authors  Under  "  Latin," 
we  find  four  pages  of  grammars  and  lexicons;  some  of 
the  latter  giving  the  equivalents  in  Portuguese,  Tamul, 
Chinese,  French,  Polish,  Brazilian,  Bohemian,  Syrian, 
Armenian  and  Japanese.  After  that  we  have: 
"  Elegances,"  "  Roots,"  "  Ancient  and  Modern  Latin," 
"Anthologies,"  "Pronunciations,"  "Medullas"  etc. 
Six  pages  are  devoted  to  grammars  and  dictionaries 
of  European  languages,  not  only  the  ordinary  ones 
but  also  Basque,  Bohemian,  Celtic,  Croat,  Illyrian, 
Wend,  Provengal,  Russian  and  Turkish.  The  Asiatic 
languages  follow  next  in  order:  Annamite,  Siamese, 
Arabian,  Armenian,  Georgian,  Chinese,  Cochinese, 
Hebrew,  Hindustanee,  Japanese,  Persian,  Sanscrit 

[855] 


856  The  Jesuits 

and  Syrian;  with  two  columns  of  Angolese,  Caff  re, 
Egyptian,  Ethiopian,  Kabyle  and  Malgache  grammars. 
The  Malgache  all  bear  the  dates  of  the  late  nineteenth 
century,  and  there  is  an  Esquimaux  Grammar  by 
Father  Barnum  dated  1901. 

The  tongues  of  most  of  the  North  and  South  Ameri- 
can Indians  are  represented;  the  dictionaries  of  the 
South  American  Indians  were  all  written  by  the  Fathers 
of  the  old  Society. 

The  books  devoted  to  the  study  of  eloquence  are 
appalling  in  their  number.  They  are  in  all  languages 
and  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  sacred  and  profane.  There 
are  panegyrics,  funeral  orations,  coronation  speeches, 
eulogies,  episcopal  consecrations,  royal  progresses, 
patriotic  discourses,  but  only  occasionally  does  the 
eye  catch  a  modern  date  in  the  formidable  list  of 
sixty-three  folio  pages. 

Latin  poetry  claims  fifty-seven  pages  for  the  titles 
of  compositions  or  studies.  Poetry  in  the  modern 
languages  is  much  more  modest  and  requires  only  as 
many  columns  as  the  ancients  demanded  pages.  The 
English  list  is  very  brief;  the  Italian  very  long;  and 
while  the  ancient  Jesuits  seemed  to  have  little  fear 
of  breaking  forth  into  verse,  the  modern  worshippers 
of  the  Muse,  except  when  they  utter  their  thoughts 
in  Malgache,  or  Chouana  or  Tagale  or  Japanese,  are 
very  cautious. 

Pious  people  perhaps  may  be  scandalized  to  hear  that 
the  Jesuits  of  the  old  Society  wrote  a  great  deal  for 
the  theatres;  it  was  not,  however,  for  the  theatres  of 
the  world,  but  for  the  theatres  of  their  colleges.  Hence 
in  the  chapter  entitled  "  Theatre,"  after  a  number  of 
treatises  on  "  The  Restriction  of  Comedies,"  "  Theatre 
des  Grecs,"  "  Liturgical  Drama,"  "  Reflections  on 
the  Danger  of  Shows,"  "  The  mind  of  St.  Paul,  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  and  St.  Francis  de  Sales  on  Plays;" 


Literature  857 

etc.,  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  titles  of  plays 
that  crowd  and  blacken  by  their  close  print  no  less 
than  ten  huge  folio  pages.  They  are  contributed  by 
the  Jesuits  of  all  countries.  Germany  especially  was 
very  prolific  in  this  kind  of  literature,  claiming  as  many 
as  four  pages  of  titles;  England  furnishes  only  seven 
dramas  in  all,  three  of  which  are  modern.  Three  of 
the  ancient  plays  had  for  their  author  no  less  a  per- 
sonage than  the  Blessed  Edmund  Campion.  They 
were  entitled  "  The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac,"  "  The  Tragedy 
of  King  Saul,"  while  Southwell  credits  him  with 
"  Nectar  et  Ambrosia,"  which  was  acted  before  the 
emperor.  All  these  were  written  in  1575,  when  he 
was  professor  of  rhetoric  in  Bohemia. 

Belgium  has  a  long  list  to  its  credit,  and  among  the 
dramatists  appears  the  very  eminent  Ignace  Car- 
bonelle,  but  only  as  the  author  of  the  text  of  a  Cantata 
for  the  jubilee  of  Pius  IX  in  1877.  In  France  occurs  the 
name  of  Arsene  Cahours,  who  wrote  many  tragedies 
and  even  a  vaudeville,  which  he  called  "  L'enterrement 
du  Pere  Simon,  le  brocanteur."  Longhaye's  well- 
known  college  plays  are  on  the  list. 

There  are  many  oratorios,  but  it  is  feared  that  the 
timid  will  be  scandalized  to  hear  that  an  entire  column 
is  required  for  the  names  of  the  authors  of  ballets. 
One  of  the  writers  is  no  less  a  personage  than  the 
distinguished  historian  Jouvancy.  The  ballets  are 
interludes;  there  was  no  impropriety  in  these  dances, 
however,  for  no  female  characters  appeared,  and  the 
college  boys  for  whom  they  were  written  had  to  do  all 
the  dancing  themselves. 

"  Many  of  these  dramas,"  says  Father  Schwickerath 
quoting  Janssen,  "  were  exhibited  with  all  possible 
splendor,  as  for  instance  those  given  at  La  Fleche  in 
1614  before  Louis  XIII  and  his  court.  But  it  seems 
that  nowhere  was  greater  pomp  displayed  than  at 


858  The  Jesuits 

Munich  where  the  court  liberally  contributed  to  make 
the  performances  especially  brilliant.  In  1574  the 
tragedy  '  Constantine '  was  played  on  two  successive 
days,  and  the  whole  city  was  beautifully  decorated. 
More  than  one  thousand  actors  took  part  in  the  play. 
Constantine  entered  the  city  in  a  triumphal  chariot 
surrounded  by  four  hundred  horsemen  in  glittering 
armor.  At  the  performance  of  'Esther'  in  1577, 
the  most  splendid  costumes  and  gems  were  furnished 
from  the  treasury  of  the  Duke;  and  at  the  banquet  of 
King  Assuerus  one  hundred  precious  dishes  of  gold 
and  silver  were  used." 

Those  old  Jesuits  seemed  to  be  carrying  out  the 
famous  order  of  La  Mancha's  Knight  when  the  ordinary 
stage  was  too  small:  "Then  build  a  house  or  act  it 
on  the  plain;"  or  as  a  recent  writer  declares  "  Like 
Richard  Wagner  in  our  days,  the  Jesuits  aimed  at  and 
succeeded  in  uniting  all  the  arts  within  the  compass 
of  the  drama.  The  effect  of  such  plays  was  like  those 
of  the  Oberammergau  Passion  Play,  ravishing,  over- 
powering. Even  people  ignorant  of  the  Latin  tongue 
were  captivated  by  these  representations  and  the 
concourse  of  people  was  usually  very  great.  In  1565 
1  Judith  '  was  acted  before  the  court  in  Munich  and 
then  repeated  in  the  public  square.  Even  the  surround- 
ing walls  and  roofs  of  the  houses  were  covered  with 
eager  spectators.  In  1560  the  comedy  '  Euripus ' 
was  given  in  the  courtyard  of  the  college  at  Prague 
before  a  crowd  of  more  than  eight  thousand  people. 
It  had  to  be  repeated  three  times  and  was  asked  for 
again  and  again." 

The  early  German  parsons  denounced  these  dramas 
as  devices  for  propagating  idolatry,  but  on  the  other 
hand  a  very  capable  critic  Karl  von  Reinhardstottner 
says:  "  In  the  first  century  of  their  history  the  Jesuits 
did  great  work  in  this  line.  They  performed  dramas 


Literature  859 

full  of  power  and  grandeur,  and  though  their  dramatic 
productions  did  not  equal  the  fine  lyrics  of  the  Jesuit 
poets  Balde  and  Sarbiewski,  still  in  the  dramas  of 
Fabricius,  Agricola  and  others,  there  is  unmistakable 
poetic  spirit  and  noble  seriousness.  How  could  the 
enormous  success  of  their  performances  be  otherwise 
explained?  And  who  could  doubt  for  a  moment  that 
by  their  dramas  they  rendered  great  service  to  their 
century;  that  they  advanced  culture,  and  preserved 
taste  for  the  theatre  and  its  subsidiary  arts?  It  would 
be  sheer  ingratitude  to  undervalue  what  they  effected 
by  their  dramas." 

Goethe  was  present  at  a  play  given  in  1786  at  Ratis- 
bon.  It  was  during  the  Suppression,  but  happily  the 
Jesuit  traditions  had  been  maintained  in  the  college. 
He  has  left  his  impressions  in  writing:  "  This  public 
performance  has  convinced  me  anew  of  the  cleverness 
of  the  Jesuits.  They  rejected  nothing  that  could 
be  of  any  conceivable  service  to  them,  and  they  knew 
how  to  wield  their  weapons  with  devotion  and  dexterity. 
This  is  not  cleverness  of  the  merely  abstract  order;  it 
is  a  real  fruition  of  the  thing  itself;  an  absorbing  interest 
which  springs  from  the  practical  uses  of  life.  Just  as 
this  great  spiritual  society  had  its  organ-builders, 
its  sculptors,  its  gilders  so  there  seem  to  be  some  who 
by  nature  and  inclination  take  to  the  drama;  and  as 
their  churches  are  distinguished  by  a  pleasing  pomp, 
so  these  prudent  men  have  seized  on  the  sensibility 
of  the  world  by  a  decent  theatre."  (Italien  Reise,  Goethe 
Werke,  Cotta's  Ed.  1840  XXIII  p.  3-4.) 

Tiraboschi  began  his  literary  work  when  a  young 
professor  in  Modena  by  editing  the  Latin-Italian 
dictionary  of  Monza,  but  he  made  so  many  corrections 
that  it  was  practically  a  new  work.  Subsequently  he 
was  appointed  librarian  at  Milan,  and  by  means  of 
the  documents  he  discovered,  wrote  a  "  History  of 


860  The  Jesuits 

the  Humiliati,"  which  filled  up  a  gap  in  the  annals  of 
the  Church.  While  librarian  in  the  ducal  library  at 
Modena,  he  began  his  monumental  work  on  the  "  Storia 
della  letteratura  italiana."  This  history  extends  from 
Etruscan  times  to  1700,  and  required  eleven  years  of 
constant  labor  to  complete  it. 

Hurter  tells  us  "  Michael  Cosmas  Petrus  Denis  was 
a  most  celebrated  bibliographer,  whose  almost  innumer- 
able works  must  be  placed  in  the  category  of  human- 
istic literature."  He  entered  the  Society  in  Upper 
Austria  on  October  17,  1747,  and  taught  rhetoric  for 
twelve  years  in  the  Theresian  College  for  Nobles, 
where  he  won  some  renown  by  his  poetry.  At  the 
time  of  the  Suppression  of  the  Society,  to  which  he 
ever  remained  grateful  and  attached,  he  was  given 
charge  of  the  Garelli  Library  and  devoted  himself  to 
the  study  of  literature  and  bibliography.  His  public 
lectures  attracted  immense  throngs  from  far  and  near. 
He  was  promoted  to  be  royal  counsellor  by  Emperor 
Leopold  and  was  made  custodian  of  the  Imperial 
Library.  By  that  time  he  was  a  European  celebrity. 
De  Backer  in  his  "  Bibliotheca "  mentions  ninety- 
three  of  his  publications.  Hurter  classifies  as  the  most 
important  the  "  Denkmale  der  christlichen  Glauben- 
und  Sittenlehre. ' '  His  poems  which  he  signed  ' '  Sined, ' ' 
which  was  Denis  spelled  backward,  won  him  the  name 
of  Bard  of  the  Danube,  and  helped  considerably  to 
promote  the  study  of  German  in  Austria.  He  was 
one  of  a  group  of  poets  whose  chief  aim  was  to  arouse 
German  patriotism.  Ossian  was  their  ideal  and 
inspiration,  and  Denis  translated  the  Gaelic  poet  into 
German  (1768-69),  and  in  addition  he  published  two 
volumes  of  poems  just  one  year  before  the  Suppression. 
Naturally  these  patriotic  effusions  in  verse  by  a  Jesuit 
attracted  considerable  attention.  Denis  died  in 
Vienna  on  20  September,  1800. 


Literature  861 

Father  Baumgartner  has  won  a  high  place  in  the 
domain  of  letters  by  his  large  work  entitled  "  History 
of  the  Literature  of  the  Entire  World."  Besides  this 
he  has  to  his  credit  three  volumes  on  "  Goethe,"  another 
on  "  Longfellow;"  a  fifth  on  "  Vondel,"  a  sixth  entitled 
"  Ausfliige  in  das  Land  der  Seein  "  and  a  seventh 
called  "  Island  und  die  Faroer." 

Of  Father  Faustino  Arevalo,  the  distinguished 
hymnographer  and  patrologist,  we  have  spoken  above. 

Geographical  themes  appealed  to  many  writers  both 
of  the  old  and  the  new  Society,  and  also  to  those  of 
the  intervening  period.  The  subjects  relate  to  every 
part  of  the  world.  There  is,  for  instance,  "  The  German 
Tyrol"  by  the  Italian  Bresciani;  "The  Longitude  of 
Milan  "  by  Lagrange;  "  The  Geography  of  the  Archi- 
pelago "  by  F.  X.  Liechtle.  This  archipelago  was  the 
West  Indies.  His  brother  Ignatius  executed  a  sim- 
ilar work  on  the  Grecian  Islands.  He  went  to  Naxos 
in  1754,  and  died  there  in  1795.  "  Chota-Nagpur  " 
is  described  in  1883,  "  Abyssinia  "  in  1896,  and  the 
"  Belgian  Congo "  in  1897.  Veiga  writes  of  the 
"  Orinoco  "  in  1789,  and  Armand  Jean  of  the  "  Poly- 
nesians "  in  1867.  There  is  no  end  of  maps  such  as 
"  Turkestan  and  Dzoungaria,"  "  China  and  Tatary," 
"The  Land  of  Chanaan,"  "Paraguay,"  "Lake 
Superior,"  '  The  Land  between  the  Napo  and  the 
Amazons."  The  famous  maps  of  Mexico  by  Father 
Kino  have  been  reproduced  by  Hubert  Bancroft  in  his 
"  Native  Races." 

Joseph  de  Mayoria  de  Mailla's  great  work  called 
'  Toung-Kian-Kang-mou,"  which  is  an  abstract  of 
the  Chinese  annals,  was  sent  to  France  in  1737,  but 
was  not  published  until  1785.  He  was  the  first  Euro- 
pean to  give  the  world  a  knowledge  of  the  classic 
historical  works  of  the  Chinese.  His  work  is  of  great 
value  for  the  reason  that  it  provides  the  most  important 


862  The  Jesuits 

foundation  for  a  connected  history  of  China.  He  sent 
along  with  it  many  very  valuable  maps  and  charts  - 
the  result  of  his  work  in  making  a  cartographical  survey 
of  the  country;  the  part  assigned  to  him  including 
the  provinces  of  Ho-nan,  Kiang-hinan,  Tshe-Kiang, 
Fo-Kien  and  the  Island  of  Formosa.  As  a  reward  for 
his  labor  the  emperor  made  him  a  mandarin,  and  when 
he  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine  very  elaborate 
obsequies  were  ordered  by  imperial  decree. 

Father  Joseph  Fischer,  a  professor  at  Feldskirch,  is 
known  in  all  the  learned  societies  of  the  world  for  his 
"  Die  Entdeckungen  der  Normannen  in  America " 
and  also  for  his  "  Cosmographiae  introductio "  of 
Martin  Waldseemiiller,  on  whose  map  the  name 
"  America  "  first  appeared.  The  maps  and  studies  of 
old  Huronia  by  Father  Jones  have  been  published  by 
the  Canadian  Government. 

John  Baptist  Belot,  who  died  in  1904,  won  a  reputa- 
tion as  an  Orientalist,  as  did  his  associate  Father 
Cheiko  by  his  "  Chrestomathia  Arabica,"  in  five 
volumes,  and  also  by  his  Arabic  Lexicon.  Their 
fellow-worker  Father  Lammens  is  now  a  professor  in 
the  Biblical  Institute  in  Rome.  As  they  lived  a 
considerable  time  in  Syria  they  have  a  distinct  advan- 
tage over  other  Europeans  in  this  particular  study. 

Andrew  Zottoli  is  an  authority  as  a  sinologist.  The 
misfortune  of  being  exiled  from  Italy  in  1848  gave  him 
the  advantage,  which  he  would  not  otherwise  have  had, 
of  becoming  proficient  in  Chinese,  for  he  lived  fifty- 
four  years  in  Kiang-nan.  Besides  his  Chinese  cate- 
chism and  grammar,  he  has  published  a  complete 
course  of  Chinese  literature  in  five  volumes,  and  a 
universal  dictionary  of  the  Chinese  language  in  twelve. 

To  this  list  may  be  added  what  a  recent  critic  called 
the  monumental  work  of  the  illustrious  Father  Beccari, 
known  as  "  Scriptores  rerum  aegyptiacarum. "  It 


Literature  863 

consists  of  sixteen  volumes,  and  includes  the  entire 
period  of  Egyptian  history  from  the  sixteenth  to  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  this  category,  Father  Strass- 
maier  represents  the  Society  by  his  works  on  Assyri- 
ology  and  cuneiform  inscriptions.  With  him  is  Father 
Dahlman  whose  "  Das  Mahabharata  als  Epos  und 
Rechtbuch,"  "  Nirvana,"  "  Buddha,"  and  "  Mahab- 
hatara  Studien  "  have  won  universal  applause. 

Luigi  Lanzi,  the  Italian  archaeologist,  was  born  at 
Olmo  near  Macerata  in  1732,  and  entered  the  Society 
in  1749.  At  its  Suppression,  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany  made  him  the  assistant  director  of  the 
Florentine  Museum.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  study 
of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  and  was  made  a 
member  of  the  Arcadians.  The  deciphering  of  monu- 
ments, chiefly  Etruscan,  was  one  of  his  favorite 
occupations  and  resulted  in  his  writing  his  "  Saggio 
di  lingua  etrusca "  in  1789.  Four  years  later  he 
produced  his  noted  "  History  of  Painting  in  Italy."  His 
other  works  included  a  critical  commentary  on  Hesiod's 
"  Works  and  Days,"  with  a  Latin  and  an  Italian  transla- 
tion in  verse;  three  books  of  "  Inscriptionesetcarmina," 
translations  of  Catullus,  Theocritus  and  others,  besides 
two  ascetic  works  on  St.  Joseph  and  the  Sacred  Heart 
respectively.  He  died  in  1810  four  years  before  the 
Restoration. 

Angelo  Mai  is  one  of  the  very  attractive  figures  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  He  had  studied 
at  the  seminary  of  Bergamo  and  had  as  professor, 
Father  Mozzi,  a  member  of  the  suppressed  Society. 
When  the  saintly  Pignatelli  opened  the  novitiate  at 
Parma  in  1799,  Mozzi  joined  him  and  young  Angelo 
who  was  then  seventeen  years  old  went  there  as  a 
novice.  He  was  sent  to  Naples  in  1804  to  teach 
humanities,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  when  the  French 
occupied  the  city.  He  was  then  summoned  to  Rome, 


864  The  Jesuits 

and  ordained  a  priest.  While  there,  he  met  two 
exiled  Jesuits  from  Spain:  Monero  and  Monacho,  who 
besides  teaching  him  Hebrew  and  Greek,  gave  him 
his  first  instructions  in  paleography,  showing  him  how 
to  manipulate  and  decipher  palimpsests.  In  1813 
he  was  compelled  by  the  order  of  the  duke  to  return 
to  his  native  country,  and  was  appointed  custodian 
of  the  Ambrosian  Library  at  Milan.  There  he  made 
his  first  great  discoveries  of  a  number  of  precious 
manuscripts,  which  alone  sufficed  to  give  him  an  impor- 
tant place  in  the  learned  world.  In  1819  at  the 
suggestion  of  Cardinals  Consalvi  and  Litta,  the 
staunchest  friends  of  the  Society,  Pius  VII  appointed 
him  librarian  of  the  Vatican,  with  the  consent  of  the 
General. 

From  all  this  it  is  very  hard  to  understand  how  Mai 
is  generally  set  down  as  having  left  the  Society. 
Albers  says  so  in  his  "  Liber  saecularis,"  Hurter  in  his 
"  Nomenclator,"  as  does  Sommervogel  in  his  "  Bibli- 
otheca,"  and  his  name  does  not  appear  in  Terrien's 
list  of  those  who  died  in  the  Society.  In  spite  of  all 
this,  however,  the  expression  "left  the  Society"  seems 
a  somewhat  cruel  term  to  apply  to  one  who  was 
evidently  without  reproach  and  who  was  asked  for 
by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  He  was  made  a  cardinal 
by  Gregory  XVI,  a  promotion  which  his  old  novice 
master  Father  Pignatelli  had  foretold  when  Angelo 
was  summoned  to  be  librarian  at  Milan.  He  continued 
his  work  in  the  Vatican  and  gave  to  the  world  the 
unpublished  pages  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  ancient 
authors  which  he  had  discovered. 

Father  Hugo  Hurter  calls  Francesco  Zaccaria  of  the 
old  Society  the  most  industrious  worker  in  the  his- 
tory of  literature.  This  praise  might  well  be  applied  to 
himself  if  it  were  only  for  his  wonderful  "  Nomenclator 
literarius  theologise  catholicae. "  It  is  a  catalogue  of  the 


Literature  865 

names  and  works  of  all  Catholic  theological  writers 
from  the  year  1564  up  to  the  year  1894.  Nor  is  it  merely 
a  list  of  names  for  it  gives  an  epitome  of  the  lives 
of  the  authors  and  an  appreciation  of  their  work 
and  their  relative  merit  in  the  special  subject  to  which 
they  devoted  themselves;  it  thus  covers  the  whole 
domain  of  scholastic,  positive  and  moral  theology, 
as  well  as  of  patrology,  ecclesiastical  history  and  the 
cognate  sciences  such  as  epigraphy,  archaeology  and 
liturgy.  It  consists  of  five  volumes  with  two  closely 
printed  columns  on  each  page.  The  last  column  in 
the  second  volume  is  numbered  1846.  After  that  come 
fifty-three  .pages  of  indexes  and  a  single  page  of  corri- 
genda in  that  volume  alone.  It  is  worth  while  noting 
that  there  are  only  six  errors  in  all  this  bewildering  mass 
of  matter;  there  are,  besides,  three  additions,  not  to  the 
text,  but  to  the  index,  from  which  the  names  of  three 
writers  were  accidentally  omitted. 

So  condensed  is  the  letterpress  that  only  a  dash 
separates  one  subject  from  another.  Nevertheless, 
thanks  to  the  ingenious  indexes,  both  of  persons 
and  subjects,  the  subject  sought  for  can  be  found 
immediately.  Finally,  between  the  text  and  the  indexes 
are  two  marvellous  chronological  charts.  By  means  of 
the  first,  the  student  can  follow  year  by  year  the 
growth  of  the  various  branches  of  theology  and  know 
the  names  of  all  the  authors  in  each.  The  second 
chart  takes  the  different  countries  of  Europe  —  Italy, 
Spain,  Portugal,  France,  Belgium,  Germany,  England, 
Poland  and  Hungary  —  and  as  you  travel  down  the 
years  in  the  succeeding  centuries  you  can  see  what 
studies  were  most  in  favor  in  different  parts  of  the 
world  and  the  different  stages  of  their  history.  Not 
only  that,  but  a  style  of  type,  varying  from  a  large 
black  print,  down  to  a  very  pale  and  small  impression, 
gives  you  the  relative  prominence  of  every  one  of  the 
55 


866  The  Jesuits 

vast  multitude  of  authors.  Such  a  work  will  last  to 
the  end  of  time  and  never  lose  its  value,  and  how 
Father  Hurter,  who  was  the  beloved  spiritual  father 
of  the  University  of  Innsbruck,  whose  theological 
faculty  he  entered  in  1858,  and  who,  besides  publishing 
his  unusually  attractive  theology  and  editing  fifty- 
eight  volumes  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  could  find 
time  and  strength  to  produce  his  encyclopedic 
"  Nomenclator"  is  almost  inconceivable. 

In  the  year  1907,  the  scheme  of  a  Catholic  Encyclo- 
pedia was  launched  in  New  York.  The  editors  chosen 
were  Dr.  Charles  Herbermann,  for  more  than  fifty 
years  professor  of  Latin  and  the  most  distinguished 
member  of  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York; 
Mgr.  Thomas  Shahan,  the  rector  of  the  Catholic 
University  at  Washington,  and  later  raised  to  the 
episcopal  dignity;  Dr.  Edward  A.  Pace,  professor  of 
philosophy  in  the  same  university;  Dr.  Conde  Benoist 
Fallen,  a  well-known  Catholic  publicist,  and  Father 
John  J.  Wynne  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

The  scope  of  the  work  is  unlike  that  of  other  Catholic 
encyclopedias.  It  is  not  exclusively  ecclesiastical,  for 
it  records  all  that  Catholics  have  done  not  only  in 
behalf  of  charity  or  morals,  but  also  in  the  intellectual, 
and  artistic  development  of  mankind.  Hence,  while 
covering  the  whole  domain  of  dogmatic  and  moral 
theology,  ecclesiastical  history  and  liturgy,  it  has 
succeeded  in  giving  its  readers  information  on  art, 
architecture,  archeology,  literature,  history,  travel, 
language,  ethnology,  etc.,  such  as  cannot  be  found  in 
any  other  encyclopedia  in  the  English  language.  Only 
the  most  eminent  writers  have  been  asked  to  contribute 
to  it,  and  hence  its  articles  can  be  cited  as  the  most 
recent  exposition  of  the  matters  discussed.  It  appeared 
with  amazing  rapidity,  the  whole  series  of  sixteen 
volumes  being  completed  in  nine  years.  To  it  is 


Literature  867 

added  an  extra  volume  entitled  "  The  Catholic  Ency- 
clopedia and  its  Makers,  "which  consists  of  photographs 
and  biographical  sketches  of  all  the  contributors. 

The  encyclopedia  has  proved  to  be  an  immense 
boon  to  the  Church  in  America.  The  chief  credit  of 
the  publication  is  generally  accorded  to  Father  John 
Wynne,  who  is  a  native  of  New  York.  It  was  he  who 
conceived  it,  secured  the  board  of  editors,  and,  as  his 
distinguished  associate,  Bishop  Shahan,  declared  with 
almost  affectionate  eagerness  at  a  public  session  of 
the  faculty  and  students  of  the  ecclesiastical  seminary 
of  New  York :  "  it  was  he  who  encouraged  and  sustained 
the  editors  by  his  buoyant  optimism  in  the  perilous 
stages  of  its  elaboration."  This  information  may  be 
helpful  abroad  to  show  that  the  Society  in  America 
is  doing  something  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salva- 
tion of  souls.  The  apostolic  character  of  the  work  is 
further  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  funds  are  being 
established  in  various  dioceses  to  enable  each  seminarian 
to  become  the  personal  owner  of  the  entire  set  from 
the  very  first  moment  he  begins  his  studies.  The 
effect  of  such  an  arrangement  on  the  ecclesiastical 
mind  of  the  century  is  inestimable.  It  is  also  being 
placed  by  the  Knights  of  Columbus  and  by  rich 
Catholics  in  battleships  and  the  United  States'  military 
posts,  as  well  as  in  civic  libraries  and  club  houses. 

The  first  catalogue  of  Jesuit  writers  was  drawn  up 
by  Father  Ribadeneira  in  1602-1608.  Schott  and 
Alegambe  continued  the  work  in  1643,  and  Nathaniel 
Bacon  or  Southwell,  or  Sotwel,  as  he  was  called  on 
the  Continent,  published  a  third  in  1676.  Nothing 
more,  however,  was  done  in  that  line  by  the  old  Society, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  twenty-first  congregation,  at 
which  Father  Roothaan  presided,  that  a  postulatum 
was  presented  asking  for  the  resumption  of  this  valuable 
work.  Something  prevented  this  from  being  done  for 


868  The  Jesuits 

the  time  being,  and  it  was  not  until  1853  that  the 
work  was  undertaken  by  the  two  Belgians,  Augustine 
and  Aloys  de  Backer. 

Up  to  1 86 1  a  series  of  seven  issues  appeared,  but 
as  by  that  time  the  number  of  names  had  increased 
to  ten  thousand,  a  new  arrangement  had  to  be  made, 
and  in  1869  the  work  appeared  in  three  large  folios. 
In  1885,  on  the  death  of  Augustine  de  Backer,  Charles 
Sommervogel  took  up  the  work.  Providentially  he 
was  well  equipped  for  the  task,  for  although  he  had  been 
continually  employed  at  other  tasks,  sometimes  merely 
as  a  surveillant  in  a  French  college,  he  had  contrived 
to  publish  in  1884  a " Dictionnaire  des  ouvrages  anony 
meset  pseudonymes  des  religieux  de  la  Compagnie  de 
Jesus."  He  began  by  recasting  all  that  his  predecessors 
had  done,  and  it  was  only  after  four  years  that  he  had 
published  the  first  volume.  Others,  however,  followed 
in  quick  succession,  and  in  1900  the  ninth  volume 
appeared.  The  tenth  volume,  an  index,  was  unfinished 
at  the  time  of  his  death,  but  has  since  been  completed 
by  Father  Bliard.  Besides  his  articles  in  the  "  Etudes," 
he  had  also  put  into  press  a  "  Table  methodique  des 
Memoires  de  Trevoux,"  in  three  volumes,  a  "Biblio- 
theca  Mariana  S.  J."  and  a  "  Moniteur  bibliographique 
de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus."  He  had  intended  to 
publish  a  revised  edition  of  Carayon's,  "  Bibliographic 
historique,"  but  was  prevented  by  death. 

As  far  back  as  1658,  Pope  Alexander  VIII  did  not 
hesitate  to  declare  that  "  no  literary  work  had  ever 
been  undertaken  that  was  more  useful  or  more  glorious  " 
than  the  "  Acta  Sanctorum  "  of  Father  Bollandus  and 
his  associates,  nor  did  the  learned  Protestants  of  those 
days  refrain  from  extolling  the  scientific  spirit  in  which 
the  work  was  being  conducted.  The  "  Acta,"  which 
began  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  and 
which  is  still  going  on,  reads  like  a  romance.  The 


Literature  869 

account  of  it  by  De  Smedt  tells  us  how  the  first  writers 
had  only  a  garret  for  a  library,  and  were  forced  to 
pile  their  books  on  the  floor;  how  Cardinal  Bellarmine 
denounced  the  work  as  chimerical;  how  the  Carmelites 
were  in  a  rage  because  Papebroch  denied  that  Elias 
was  the  founder  of  their  order;  how  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  denounced  the  work  and  condemned  the 
thirty  volumes  as  heretical,  and  how  finally  it  reached 
its  present  status. 

The  Bollandists  did  not  immediately  feel  the  blow 
that  struck  the  rest  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  1773. 
Indeed,  the  commissioners  announced  that  the  govern- 
ment was  satisfied  with  the  labors  of  the  Bollandists 
and  was  disposed  to  exercise  special  consideration  in 
their  behalf.  In  1778  they  removed  to  the  Abbey 
of  Caudenberg  in  Brussels,  and  the  writers  received 
a  small  pension.  In  1788  three  new  volumes  were 
published.  Meantime  Joseph  II  had  succeeded  Maria 
Theresa,  and  the  sky  began  to  darken.  On  October 
16,  1788,  the  government  decided  to  stop  the  pension 
of  the  writers,  and  their  books  and  manuscripts  which 
the  official  inspectors  denounced  as  "  trash "  were 
ordered  to  be  sold.  After  a  year,  the  Fathers  made 
an  offer  to  the  Premonstratensian  Abbot  of  Tongerloo 
to  buy  the  books  and  manuscripts  for  what  would  be 
equivalent  now  to  about  $4,353;  the  money,  however, 
was  to  be  paid  to  the  Austrian  government  and  not 
to  the  owners  of  the  library.  Happily  the  writers 
found  shelter  in  the  monastery  with  their  books  and, 
though  the  Brabantine  Revolution  disturbed  them 
for  a  time,  they  continued  at  their  work  unmolested 
until  1794,  when  they  issued  another  volume. 

It  was  fortunate  that  they  had  succeeded  in  putting 
that  volume  into  print,  for  that  very  year  the  French 
invaded  Belgium  and  both  Premonstratensians  and 
Bollandists  were  obliged  to  disperse.  Some  of  the 


870  The  Jesuits 

treasures  of  the  library  were  hidden  in  the  houses 
of  the  peasants,  and  others  were  hastily  piled  into 
wagons  and  carried  to  Westphalia,  with  the  only 
result  that  could  be  anticipated  —  the  loss  of  an 
immense  amount  of  most  valuable  material;  a  certain 
number  of  the  books  were  returned  to  the  abbey,  and 
left  there  in  the  dust  until  1825.  As  there  was  no 
hope,  at  that  time,  of  the  Bollandists  ever  being  able 
to  resume  their  work,  the  monks  disposed  of  most  of 
the  library  treasure  at  public  auction,  and,  what  was 
not  sold,  was  given  to  the  Holland  government  and 
incorporated  in  the  library  of  the  Hague.  The  manu- 
scripts were  transported  to  Brussels  and  deposited  in 
the  Burgundian  Library.  They  are  still  there. 

In  1836  a  hagiographical  society  in  France  under 
the  patronage  of  Guizot  and  several  bishops  proposed 
to  take  up  the  work  of  the  Bollandists  and  an  envoy 
was  sent  to  purchase  the  documents  from  the  Belgian 
government.  The  proposition  evoked  a  patriotic  storm 
in  the  little  country,  and  a  petition  was  made  to  the 
minister  of  the  interior,  de  Theux,  imploring  him  to 
lose  no  time  in  securing  for  his  native  land  the  honor 
of  completing  the  work,  and  to  entrust  the  task  to  the 
Jesuit  Fathers,  who  had  begun  it  and  carried  it  on 
for  two  centuries.  The  result  was  that  on  January 
29,  1837,  the  provincial  of  Belgium  appointed  four 
Fathers  who  were  to  live  at  St.  Michel  in  Brussels. 
The  government  gave  them  an  annual  subsidy  of  six 
thousand  francs,  but  this  was  withdrawn  in  1868 
by  the  Liberals  and  never  restored,  though  the  Catholics 
have  been  in  control  since  1884. 

There  are  more  than  one  hundred  volumes  to  the 
credit  of  the  writers  up  to  the  present  time,  sixty -five 
of  which  are  huge  folios.  What  they  contain  may  be 
learned  from  the  most  competent  of  all  authorities, 
Charles  de  Smedt,  the  Bollandist  director,  who  wrote 


Literature  871 

the  most  complete  and  scientific  account  of  the 
Bollandist  collection  for  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia. 
It  is  sufficient  to  state  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  most 
distinguished  and  capable  scholars  in  the  field,  the 
work  of  the  later  Bollandists  is  in  no  wise  inferior  to 
the  work  of  their  illustrious  predecessors  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries. 

In  reviewing  a  recent  publication  of  a  Bollandist 
work,  the  scholarly  "  American  Historical  Review " 
(July,  1920)  has  this  to  say:  "  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
a  more  widely  diffused  knowledge  of  what  the 
Bollandists  have  been  doing  for  human  learning, 
historical  and  literary,  may  bring  American  aid  to  fill 
the  gaps  in  their  resources  caused  by  the  devastations 
of  war.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  know  that  the  Princeton 
University  Press  intends  to  issue  an  English  translation 
of  Father  Delehaye's  admirable  book,  which  gives  an 
account  of  the  labors  of  the  Bollandists  from  1638 
down  to  the  present  day." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Jesuits  had  a  way  of  keeping 
their  most  brilliant  members  before  the  public  eye  while 
sending  their  inferior  men  to  the  missions  to  be  eaten 
by  the  savages.  That  this  is  not  an  accepted  opinion 
in  America  is  evidenced  by  the  publication  of  what 
are  called  the  "  Jesuit  Relations,"  in  seventy-two 
volumes,  by  a  firm  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  whose  members 
had  no  affiliation  with  Catholics  or  Jesuits,  and  whose 
venture  involved  immense  financial  risks.  "  The  Jesuit 
Relations  and  Allied  Documents "  is  the  title  of 
the  work.  The  subsidiary  title  is  "  Travels  and 
Explorations  of  Jesuit  Missionaries  in  New  France, 
1610-1791.  The  Original  French,  Latin  and  Italian 
Texts,  with  English  Translations  and  Notes,  illustrated 
by  Portraits,  Maps  and  Facsimiles." 

The  editor  is  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites,  Secretary  of 
the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin.  In  his 


872  The  Jesuits 

preface  he  says:  "American  historians  from  Shea 
and  Parkman  down  have  already  made  liberal  use  of 
the  '  Relations,'  and  here  and  there  antiquarians  and 
historical  societies  have  published  fragmentary  trans- 
lations. The  great  body  of  the  '  Relations  '  and  their 
allied  documents  however  have  never  been  Englished; 
hence  these  interesting  papers  have  never  been  accessible 
to  the  majority  of  historical  students.  The  present 
edition  offers  to  the  public  for  the  first  time  an  English 
rendering  side  by  side  with  the  original. 

"  The  authors  of  the  journals  which  form  the  basis 
of  the  '  Relations  '  were  for  the  most  part  men  of 
trained  intellect,  acute  observers,  and  practiced  in  the 
art.  of  keeping  records  of  their  experiences.  They  had 
left  the  most  highly  civilized  country  of  their  times 
to  plunge  at  once  into  the  heart  of  the  wilderness  and 
attempt  to  win  to  the  Christian  Faith  the  fiercest 
savages  known  to  history.  To  gain  these  savages  it  was 
first  necessary  to  know  them  intimately,  their  speech, 
their  habits,  their  manner  of  thought,  their  strong  points 
and  their  weak.  These  first  students  of  American 
Indian  history  were  not  only  amply  fitted  for  their 
task  but  none  have  since  had  better  opportunity  for 
its  prosecution.  They  performed  a  great  service  to 
mankind  in  publishing  their  annals,  which  are  for 
historian,  geographer'  and  ethnologist  our  best 
authorities. 

"  Many  of  the  '  Relations '  were  written  in  Indian 
camps  amid  a  chaos  of  distractions.  Insects  innumer- 
able tormented  the  journalists;  they  were  immersed  in 
scenes  of  squalor  and  degradation,  overcome  by  fatigue 
and  lack  of  proper  sustenance,  often  suffering  from 
wounds  and  disease,  maltreated  in  a  hundred  ways  by 
hosts,  who  at  times,  might  more  properly  be  called 
jailers;  and  not  seldom  had  savage  superstition  risen 
to  such  heights  that  to  be  seen  making  a  memorandum 


Literature  873 

was  certain  to  arouse  the  ferocious  enmity  of  the  band. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  the  composition  of  these 
journals  is  sometimes  crude;  the  wonder  is  that  they 
could  be  written  at  all.  Nearly  always  the  style  is 
simple  and  earnest.  Never  does  the  narrator  descend 
to  self-glorification  or  dwell  unnecessarily  upon  the 
details  of  his  continual  martyrdom.  He  never  com- 
plains of  his  lot,  but  sets  forth  his  experiences  in 
matter  of  fact  phrases. 

"  From  these  writings  we  gain  a  vivid  picture  of 
life  in  the  primeval  forests.  Not  only  do  these  devoted 
missionaries  —  never  in  any  field  has  been  witnessed 
greater  personal  heroism  than  theirs  —  live  and  breathe 
before  us  in  these  '  Relations,'  but  we  have  in  them  our 
first  competent  account  of  the  Red  Indian  when 
relatively  uncontaminated  by  contact  with  Europeans. 
Few  periods  of  history  are  so  well  illuminated  as  the 
French  regime  in  North  America.  This  we  owe  in  a 
large  measure  to  the  existence  of  the  Jesuit  Relations." 

"  The  existence  of  these  Relations,"  to  use  Mr. 
Thwaites'  expression,  is  due  to  the  scholarly  modern 
Jesuit,  Father  Felix  Martin,  the  founder  and  first 
rector  of  St.  Mary's  College  at  Montreal,  who  in  1858 
induced  the  Quebec  government  to  reprint  the  old 
Cramoisy  editions  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  It  was  Martin  who  developed  in  Gilmary 
Shea,  then  a  Jesuit  scholastic  in  Montreal,  the  historical 
instinct;  and  gave  to  Parkman  much  if  not  all  of  the 
information  that  made  that  author  famous,  in  spite 
of  the  bigotry  or  lack  of  comprehension  that  sometimes 
reveals  itself  in  his  pages.  Martin's  first  publication 
consisted  of  three  double  columned,  closely  printed  and 
bulky  octavos  in  French.  He  never  dreamed  that  the 
interest  in  the  book  would  grow  until  the  splendid 
edition  of  Thwaites  in  seventy-two  volumes  would 
signify  to  the  scientific  world  the  value  of  these  docu- 


874  The  Jesuits 

ments  "  written  in  canoes  or  in  the  depths  of  the 
forests,"  as  Thwaites  says,  "a  decade  before  the  land- 
ing of  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims." 

While  these  "  Relations  "  about  the  Canada  mis- 
sions were  being  published  Father  Le  Gobien  began  to 
issue  his  "  Lettres  sur  les  progr&s  de  la  religion  de  la 
Chine,"  which  ultimately  developed  into  the  well- 
known  "  Lettres  6difiantes  et  curieuses  "  describing 
missionary  enterprises  all  over  the  world.  During 
the  Suppression  they  were  issued  in  twenty-six  duo- 
decimo volumes.  An  Austrian  Jesuit  began  in  1720 
to  translate  some  of  these  letters,  entitling  his  work 
"  Neue  Welt  Bott."  It  soon  became  independent  of 
the  "  Letters  "  and  appeared  in  five  volumes  folio. 
It  is  still  being  published. 

A  certain  number  of  periodicals  are  published  by 
the  Society,  the  most  important  of  which  are  the 
"  Civilta  Cattolica,"  the  "  Etudes,"  the  "  Stimmen  aus 
Maria-Laach  "  and  the  "  Razon  y  Fe." 

The  "  Civilta  "  was  begun  in  1850  by  express  order 
of  Pius  IX.  Its  first  editors  were  Fathers  Curci, 
Bresciani,  Liberatore,  Taparelli,  Oreglia,  Piccirillo, 
and  Pianciani,  a  staff  which  would  insure  the  success 
of  any  publication.  Its  articles  are  of  the  most  serious 
kind,  dealing  with  questions  of  theology,  philosophy, 
sociology  and  literature.  Its  first  issue  of  4,200  copies 
appeared  at  Naples;  later  it  was  published  at  Rome. 
In  1870  the  staff  was  transferred  to  Naples,  but  returned 
in  1887  to  Rome.  It  is  published  every  fortnight,  and 
at  present  has  a  circulation  of  over  12,000  copies. 
It  is  under  the  direct  control  of  the  Pope,  and  unlike 
other  Society  publications  of  the  same  kind  it  is  not 
connected  with  any  house  or  college.  It  has  received 
the  highest  commendations  from  Pius  IX  and  from 
Leo  XIII. 


Literature  875 

In  1856  the  "  Etudes  "  was  begun  by  the  Jesuits  in 
France  under  the  editorship  of  Daniel  Gagarin  and 
Godfrey.  In  character  it  closely  resembles  the  "  Civ- 
ilta."  The  troubles  of  1876  caused  its  suspension  for 
almost  a  year,  but  the  various  dispersions  of  the  French 
provinces  have  not  affected  it,  except  perhaps  in  the 
extent  of  its  circulation.  It  is  published  at  Paris, 
but  was  at  one  time  issued  from  Lyons.  From  a 
monthly  it  has  developed  into  a  fortnightly  review  in 
latter  years. 

The  German  Fathers  have  their  monthly  "  Stimmen 
aus  Maria-Laach,"  the  first  number  of  which  appeared 
in  1865.  The  defense  of  the  Syllabus  called  it  into 
being.  When  the  Kulturkampf  drove  the  editors  from 
Maria-Laach,  they  migrated  to  Tervuren  in  Belgium. 
There  they  remained  until  1880,  when  they  went  to 
Blijenbeck  in  Holland.  In  1910  we  find  them  at 
Valkenburg,  Holland,  attached  to  the  Scholasticate. 
The  ability  of  the  staff  has  placed  the  "  Stimmen  " 
on  a  very  high  plane  as  a  periodical. 

The  monthly  "  Razon  y  Fe  "  was  begun  by  the 
Spanish  Fathers  in  1901,  and  "Studies"  by  the 
Irish  Jesuits  in  1912.  This  latter,  however,  admits 
contributors  who  are  not  of  the  Society.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  "  Month  "  (London),  the  weekly 
"  America  "  (New  York),  the  "  Irish  Monthly  "  (Dublin) 
and  a  number  of  minor  periodicals.  There  are  also 
publications  for  private  circulation,  such  as  the 
"Woodstock  Letters,"  the  "Letters  and  Notices"; 
"  Lettres  Edifiantes "  of  various  provinces  of  the 
Society,  most  of  which  are  printed  in  the  scholasticates, 
and  convey  information  about  the  different  works 
of  the  Society  in  different  parts  of  the  world.  They 
are  largely  of  the  character  of  the  ancient  "  Relations 
des  Jesuites  "  of  the  old  French  Fathers  and  are  of 


876  The  Jesuits 

great  value  as  historical  material.  Finally  the 
American  "  Messenger  of  the  Sacred  Heart  "  publishes 
a  monthly  edition  of  350,000,  besides  millions  of  leaflets 
to  promote  the  devotion.  There  are  fifty -one  editions 
of  the  "Messenger"  published  in  thirty -five  different 
languages. 

The  reason  why  the  Society  has  not  succeeded  in 
producing  since  the  Restoration  any  theologians  like 
Suarez,  Toletus  and  others,  is  the  same  that  pre- 
vented Napoleon  Bonaparte  from  winning  back  his 
empire  when  he  was  a  prisoner  on  St.  Helena.  Con- 
ditions have  changed.  Suarez,  de  Lugo,  Ripalda  and 
their  brilliant  associates  passed  their  lives  in  Catholic 
Spain  which  gloried  in  universities  like  Salamanca, 
Valladolid  or  Alcala.  There  those  great  men  wrote 
and  taught;  Bellarmine  and  Toletus  labored  in  Rome 
and  Lessius  in  Louvain;  whereas  the  Jesuit  theologians 
in  our  day  have  been  not  only  debarred  from  the  great 
universities  but  robbed  of  their  libraries,  sent  adrift  in 
the  world  and  compelled  to  seek  not  for  learned  leisure 
but  for  a  roof  to  shelter  them.  They  were  expelled 
from  France  in  1762,  and  were  never  allowed  to  open 
a  school  even  for  small  boys  until  1850.  At  present 
they  are  permitted  to  shed  their  blood  on  the  battle 
field  for  their  country  from  which  they  have  been 
driven  into  exile.  They  were  banished  from  Italy 
repeatedly,  and  have  never  secured  a  foothold  in 
Germany  since  1872;  they  do  not  exist  in  Portugal  and 
any  moment  may  see  them  expelled  from  Spain. 
In  England  and  Ireland  Catholics  were  not  emanci- 
pated until  1829,  and  it  is  only  grudgingly  that  the 
government  allows  Ireland  to  have*  a  university  which 
Catholics  can  safely  frequent,  and  even  there  no  chair 
of  Catholic  theology  may  be  maintained  with  the 
ordinary  revenues.  In  America  everything  is  in  a 
formative  state  and  what  money  is  available  has  to  be 


Literature  877 

used  for  elementary  instruction,  both  religious  and 
secular,  of  the  millions  whom  poverty  and  persecution 
have  driven  out  of  Europe.  It  is  very  doubtful  if 
Suarez  and  his  great  associates  would  have  written  their 
splendid  works  in  such  surroundings. 

As  the  eye  travels  over  Hurter's  carefully  prepared 
chronological  chart,  it  catches  only  an  occasional 
gleam  of  the  old  glory,  when  the  names  of  the  Wice- 
burgenses,  Zaccaria,  Mai,  Muzzarelli,  Arevalo  and 
Morcelli  make  their  appearance  in  the  late  sixties  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  But  those  were  the  days 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  its  subsequent 
upheavals.  The  Church  itself  was  in  the  same  straits 
between  1773  and  1860,  and  its  number  of  great 
theologians  of  any  kind  is  extremely  small.  Thus, 
abstracting  from  the  Jesuits,  we  find  in  1773  only 
Florez,  the  Augustinian,  who  wrote  ecclesiastical 
history;  in  1782  the  erudite  Maronite  Assemani,  who 
is  classed  as  a  moralist;  in  1787  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori; 
and  in  1793  the  Benedictine  Gerbert,  who  is  also  a 
moralist.  The  Barnabite  Gerdil  appears  under  date 
of  1802  as  an  apologist,  and  from  that  year  up  to 
1864  there  is  no  one  to  whom  Hurter  accords  distinction 
in  any  branch  of  divinity.  Perhaps  the  reason  is  that 
the  century  was  in  the  full  triumph  of  its  material 
civilization  and  that  men  derided  and  despised  the 
dogmatic  teachings  of  religion. 

A  study  of  Hurter's  "  Nomenclator  "  is  instructive. 
In  1774,  the  year  after  the  Suppression,  there  are 
only  four  publications  by  Jesuit  authors;  in  1775  there 
are  nine;  and  then  the  number  begins  to  grow  smaller. 
In  1780  the  figure  rises  to  ten,  and  it  is  somewhat 
remarkable  that  in  1789  and  1790,  the  first  years  of  the 
French  Revolution,  seventeen  writers  appear.  The 
stream  then  dribbles  along  until  1814,  the  year  of  the 
Restoration,  when  we  find  only  one  book  with  the 


878  The  Jesuits 

letters  S.J.  after  the  name  of  its  author.     The  next 
year  there  is  none. 

The  Jesuit  who  illumines  the  darkness  of  that  period 
is  Thaddeus  Nogarola,  whom  Hurter  describes  as 
"  a  member  of  the  most  noble  family  of  Verona." 
He  was  born  on  24  December,  1729.  Consequently 
he  was  eighty-five  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration.  He  wrote  on  sanctifying  grace;  and  in 
1800  he  and  another  Jesuit  had  a  fierce  theological 
battle  on  the  subject  of  attrition,  in  which  he  defended 
his  position  with  excessive  vehemence.  In  1806  he  had 
issued  his  great  treatise  against  Gallicanism.  His 
doughty  antagonist  re-entered  the  Society  in  1816.  He 
had  expressed  himself  very  vigorously  on  the  subject 
of  the  Napoleonic  oath  in  France  and  his  books  were 
prohibited  in  the  Cisalpine  Republic. 

In  1816  four  books  were  published;  but  the  number 
continues  small  and  1823  is  credited  with  none.  In 
1824,  there  were  two  publications,  one  of  them  by 
Arevalo,  the  eminent  patrologist,  who  composed  the 
hymns  and  lessons  of  the  feast  of  Our  Lady  Help  of 
Christians.  It  is  a  very  sad  list  from  1826  to  1862, 
with  its  succession  of  ones  and  zeros.  Only  three 
names  of  any  note  appear:  Kohlmann  in  1836,  Lori- 
quet  in  1845,  and  de  Ravignan  in  1858.  That  period 
of  almost  forty  years  had  seen  the  revolutions  of 
1830  anc1  1848,  and  there  was  no  stability  for  any 
Jesuit  e  iablishment.  Finally,  however,  in  1862  came 
Pianciani,  Taparelli  and  Bresciani;  and  in  1865  and 
1866  Tongiorgi  and  Gury,  respectively.  It  was  only 
then  that  the  Society  was  able  to  begin  its  theological 
work  after  its  redintegration.  The  space  is  not 
great  between  1862  and  the  present  time,  but  since  then 
there  have  been  Perrone  and  the  great  Bollandist  and 
theologian,  Victor  de  Buck,  who  appeared  in  1876; 
Edmund  O'Reilly  in  1878;  Ballerini  and  Patrizi  in 


Literature  879 

1 88 1 ;  Kleutgen  in  1883;  and  in  1886  Cardinals  Franze- 
lin  and  Mazzella. 

During  that  period  there  was  no  end  of  confisca- 
tions and  expulsions,  even  of  those  who  were  not 
engaged  in  educational  work.  Thus  the  German 
Jesuits  acquired  the  old  Benedictine  Monastery  of 
Maria-Laach  in  1863  on  the  southwest  bank  of  a  fine 
lake  near  Andernach  in  the  Rhineland.  There 
they  organized  a  course  of  studies  for  the  scholastics 
as  well  as  a  college  of  writers.  Among  them  were 
the  learned  Schneeman,  Riess  and  others  who  began 
the  great  work  of  the  church  Councils  and  the 
"  Philosophia  Lacensis,"  besides  publishing  the  Jesuit 
"  Stimmen."  How  long  were  they  there?  Only  ten 
years.  The  Kulturkampf  banished  them  from  their 
native  land  and  they  had  to  continue  their  labors  in 
exile.  This  has  been  the  story  of  the  Society  in  almost 
every  European  country  and  in  the  Spanish  Republics 
of  South  America  and  Mexico.  In  spite  of  all  this, 
however,  Hurter's  chart  shows  that  from  1773  to  1894 
there  have  been  no  less  than  four  hundred  Jesuit 
theologians  who  published  works  in  defense  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  some  of  them  have 
achieved  prominence. 

In  philosophy,  for  instance,  there  was  Taparelli 
who  died  in  1863.  He  was  the  first  rector  of  the  Roman 
College,  when  it  was  given  back  to  the  Society  by 
Leo  XII.  He  taught  philosophy  for  fifteen  years  at 
Palermo,  and  in  1840  issued  his  great  work  which  he 
called  "  A  Theoretical  Essay  on  Natural  Rights  from 
an  historical  standpoint."  It  reached  the  seventh 
edition  in  1883  and  was  translated  into  French  and 
German.  Next  in  importance  is  his  "  Esame  critico 
degli  ordini  rappresentativi  nella  societa  moderna." 
Besides  his  striking  monographs  on  "  Nationality," 
"  Sovereignty  of  the  People,"  "  The  Grounds  of  War," 


880  The  Jesuits 

he  wrote  a  great  number  of  articles  in  the  "  Civilta  " 
on  matters  of  political  economy  and  social  rights.  His 
first  great  work  was  in  a  way  the  beginning  of  modern 
sociology.  Palmieri  issued  his  "  Institutiones  Phil- 
osophiae  "  in  1874,  and  at  the  very  outset  won  the 
reputation  of  a  great  thinker,  even  from  those  who 
were  at  variance  with  his  conclusions  and  mode  of 
thought. 

In  the  same  branch  Liberatore  was  for  a  long  time 
preeminent,  and  his  "  Institutiones  "  and  "  Composite 
humano  "  went  through  eleven  editions.  Cornoldi's 
"  Filosofia  scolastica  specolativa  "  was  also  a  notable 
production.  Lehmen's  "  Lehrbuch  "  reached  the  third 
edition  before  his  death  in  1910.  Boedder  is  well-known 
to  English  speaking  people  because  of  his  many  works 
written  during  his  professorship  at  St.  Beuno's  in  Wales. 
Cathrein's  "  Socialism  "  has  been  translated  into  nine 
different  languages,  and  his  "  Moral  Philosophy " 
has  enjoyed  great  popularity.  Pesch's  position  is 
established;  his  last  work,  "  Christliche  Lebens-philo- 
sophie,"  reached  its 'fourth  edition  within  four  years. 
Kleutgen  who  is  perhaps  the  best  known  of  these 
German  Jesuits,  was  called  by  Leo  XIII  "  the  prince 
of  philosophers  "  and  is  regarded  as  the  restorer  -of 
Catholic  philosophy  throughout  Germany.  In  Spain, 
Father  Cuevas  has  written  a  "  Cursus  completus 
philosophies  "  and  a  "  History  of  Philosophy."  Men- 
dive's  "  Text-book  of  Philosophy  "  in  Spanish  is  used 
in  several  universities,  but  the  writer  who  dominated 
all  the  rest  in  that  country  is  admittedly  Urraburu, 
who  died  prematurely  in  1904.  His  "  Cursus  philo- 
sophise scholastics,"  brings  up  the  memory  of  the 
famous  old  philosophers  of  .earlier  ages. 

It  is  not  only  edifying  but  inspiring  to  hear  that  the 
Venerable  Father  de  Cloriviere  occupied  himself  while 
in  prison  in  the  Temple  at  Paris  during  the  Revolution 


Literature  881 

in  writing  commentaries  on  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
He  was  over  seventy  years  of  age  and  was  expecting 
to  be  summoned  to  the  guillotine  at  any  moment, 
but  he  had  plenty  of  time  to  write,  for  his  imprison- 
ment lasted  five  years.  Sommervogel  credits  him  with 
commentaries  on  "  The  Canticle  of  Canticles,"  "The 
Epistles  of  St.  Peter,"  "  The  Discourse  at  the  Last 
Supper,"  "The  Animals  of  Ezechiel,"  "The  Two 
Seraphim  of  Isaias,"  besides  Constitutions  for  the 
religious  orders  he  had  founded,  lives  of  the  saints, 
novenas,  and  religious  poems.  He  also  translated 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  into  French.  Evidently  the  com- 
mentary written  in  a  prison  cell  cannot  have  measured 
up  to  the  scientific  exegesis  of  the  present  day,  but 
perhaps  for  that  reason  it  reached  the  soul  more 
readily.  In  any  case,  the  Scriptural  students  of  the 
modern  Society  made  an  excellent  start  with  a  saint 
and  a  virtual  martyr. 

Francis  Xavier  Patrizi  distinguished  himself  as  an 
exegete.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  enter  the  Society 
after  the  Restoration,  and  was  so  esteemed  for  his 
virtue  and  ability  that  he  came  very  near  being  elected 
General  of  the  Society.  His  first  publication  on 
"  The  Interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  "  appeared 
in  1844.  He  translated  the  Psalms  word  for  word 
from  the  Hebrew.  His  works  are  packed  with  erudi- 
tion, of  scrupulous  accuracy  in  their  citations,  and  of 
most  sedulous  care  in  defending  the  Sacred  Text  against 
the  Protestants  of  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  "  Cursus  Scripturae  "  of  the  Fathers  of 
Maria-Laach:  Comely,  Knabenbauer,  Hummelauer, 
and  others,  is  a  monument  of  erudition  and  labor 
and  is  without  doubt  the  most  splendid  triumph  of 
exegesis  in  the  present  century. 

In  1901,  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  appointed  and  approved 
a  Biblical  Commission  for  the  proper  interpretation  and 
56 


882  The  Jesuits 

defense  of  Holy  Scripture.  It  consists  of  five  cardinals 
and  forty-three  consultors.  Among  the  distinguished 
men  chosen  for  this  work  we  find  Fathers  Comely, 
Delattre,  Gismondi,  von  Hurnmelauer,  Mechineau,  and 
Prat.  One  of  the  duties  with  which  the  commission 
was  charged  was  the  establishment  of  a  special  institute 
for  the  prosecution  of  higher  Biblical  Studies.  In  1910 
Father  Fonck,  its  first  rector,  began  the  series  of 
public  conferences  which  was  one  of  the  assigned  works 
of  the  Institute.  It  publishes  the  "Biblical  Annals." 
The  French  Fathers  in  Syria  are  very  valuable  adjuncts^ 
to  this  institute,  because  of  their  knowledge  of  Oriental 
languages.  One  of  them,  Father  Lammens,  was  for 
years  the  editor  of  "  Bachir,"  an  Arabic  periodical. 

When  Father  John  Carroll  went  to  England  to  be 
consecrated  Bishop  of  Baltimore,  he  probably  met  at 
Lulworth  Castle,  where  the  ceremony  took  place,  a 
French  Jesuit  of  the  old  Society  who  had  found  shelter 
with  the  Weld  family  during  the  Revolution  and  was 
acting  as  their  chaplain.  He  was  Father  Grou,  a  man 
of  saintly  life.  It  was  while  he  was  in  England  that  he 
wrote  "  La  Science  de  crucifix  "  the  "  Caractere  de  la 
vraie  deVotion,"  "  Maximes  spirituelles,"  "  Medita- 
tion sur  1'amour  de  Dieu,"  "  L'interieur  de  Jesus  et 
de  Marie,"  "  Manuel  des  ames  interieures,"  "  Le  livre 
du  jeune  homme."  These  works  were  frequently 
reprinted  and  translated. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  find  that,  before  the  expul- 
sion from  France,  Father  Grou  had  been  an  ardent 
student  of  Plato  and  had  even  published  eight  books 
about  the  great  philosopher.  He  also  wrote  an  answer 
to  La  Chalotais'  attack  on  the  Society.  Sommervogel 
mentions  another  book  written  by  him  in  conjunction 
with  Father  du  Rocher.  It  is  entitled  "  Temps 
Fabuleux,"  an  historical  and  dogmatic  treatise  on  the 
true  religion. 


Literature  883 

Among  the  other  noted  ascetical  writers  were  Vigi- 
tello,  author  of  "La  Sapienza  del  cristiano,"  Mislei, 
who  wrote  "  Grandezze  di  Gesu  Cristo"  and  "  Gesu  Cristo 
e  il  Cristiano,"  Hillegeer,  Dufau,  Verbeke,  Vercruysse, 
de  Doss,  Petit,  Meschler,  Schneider  and  Chaignon, 
whose  "  Nouveau  cours  de  meditations  sacerdotales  " 
has  gone  through  numberless  editions;  Watrigant  has 
made  extensive  studies  on  the  "  Exercises;"  Ramie"re's 
"  Apostolat  de  la  Priere  "  made  the  circuit  of  the 
world  and  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the  League  of  the 
Sacred  Heart.  Coleridge's  "  Life  of  Our  Lord," 
consisting  of  thirty  volumes,  is  a  mine  of  thought 
and  especially  valuable  for  directors  of  religious 
communities. 

In  1874  Father  Camillo  Tarquini  was  raised  to  the 
cardinalate  for  his  ability  as  a  canonist.  His  disserta- 
tion on  the  Regium  placet  exequatur  made  him  an 
international  celebrity.  With  him  high  in  the  ranks 
of  canonists  are  Father  General  Wernz,  Laurentius, 
Hilgers,  Beringer,  Oswald,  Sanguinetti,  Ojetti,  Ver- 
meersch,  and  the  present  Assistant  General  Father 
Fine. 

Stephen  Anthony  Morcelli,  who  is  eminent  as  a 
historian  and  is  regarded  as  the  founder  of  epigraphy, 
was  born  in  Trent,  in  the  year  1737.  He  made  his 
studies  in  the  Roman  College,  and  there  founded 
an  academy  of  archaeology.  At  the  Suppression  he 
became  the  librarian  of  Cardinal  Albani.  He  re- 
entered  the  restored  Society.  He  was  then  eighty-four 
years  of  age.  He  had  no  superior  as  a  Latin  stylist. 
His  "  Calendar  of  the  Church  of  Constantinople," 
covering  a  thousand  years,  his  "  Readings  of  the 
Four  Gospels  "  according  to  various  codices,  and  his 
notes  on  "  Africa  Christiana "  are  of  great  value. 

Possibly  the  Portuguese  Francis  Macedo  might  be 
admitted  to  this  list  of  famous  authors.  It  is  true 


884  The  Jesuits 

that  he  left  the  Society  but  as  he  had  been  a  member 
for  twenty-eight  years  it  deserves  some  credit  for  the 
cultivation  of  his  remarkable  abilities.  Maynard  calls 
him  the  prodigy  of  his  age.  Thus  at  Venice  in  1667 
Macedo  held  a  public  disputation  on  nearly  every 
branch  of  human  knowledge,  especially  the  Bible, 
theology,  patrology,  history,  literature  and  poetry. 
In  his  quaint  and  extravagant  style  he  called  this  dis- 
play the  literary  roarings  of  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark. 
It  had  been  prepared  in  eight  days.  On  account  of 
his  success,  Venice  gave  him  the  freedom  of  the  city 
and  the  professorship  of  moral  philosophy  at  the 
University  of  Padua.  In  his  "  Myrothecium  morale  " 
he  tells  us  that  he  had  pronounced  three  hundred  and 
fifty  panegyrics,  sixty  Latin  harangues,  thirty-two 
funeral  orations,  and  had  composed  one  hundred  and 
twenty-three  elegies,  one  hundred  and  fifteen  epitaphs, 
two  hundred  and  twelve  dedicatory  epistles,  two 
thousand  and  six  hundred  heroic  poems,  one  hundred 
and  ten  odes,  four  Latin  comedies,  two  tragedies  and 
satires  in  Spanish,  besides  a  number  of  treatises  on 
theology  such  as  "  The  Doctrines  of  St.  Thomas  and 
Scotus,"  "  Positive  theology  for  the  refutation  of 
heretics,"  "The  Keys  of  Peter,"  "The  Pontifical 
Authority,"  "  Medulla  of  Ecclesiastical  History," 
and  the  "  Refutation  of  Jansenism."  The  Society 
made  him  great  but  failed  to  teach  him  humility. 
In  most  theological  libraries  which  are  even  moder- 
ately equipped  one  sees  long  lines  of  books  on  which  the 
name  of  Muzzarelli  appears.  They  are  of  different 
kinds;  ascetical,  devotional,  educational,  philosophical 
and  theological,  and  many  of  them  have  been  trans- 
lated into  various  languages.  He  belonged  to  the 
old  Society,  entering  it  only  four  years  before  the 
suppression.  He  was  then  twenty-four  years  of  age. 
As  he  was  of  a  noble  family  of  Ferrara,  he  held 


Literature  885 

a  benefice  in  his  native  city  at  the  time  of  his 
banishment,  and  a  little  later,  the  Duke  of  Parma 
made  him  rector  of  the  College  of  Nobles.  Pius  VII 
called  him  to  Rome  and  made  him  theologian  of  the 
Penitentiaria,  which  meant  that  he  was  the  Pope's 
theologian.  When  the  Society  was  re-established  in 
Naples,  he  asked  permission  to  join  his  brethren  there, 
but  the  Pope  refused.  It  was  just  as  well,  for  Napo- 
leon's troops  soon  closed  the  establishment.  When 
Pius  VII  was  carried  off  a  prisoner  in  1809,  Muzzarelli 
was  also  deported.  He  never  returned  to  Rome, 
but  died  in  Paris  one  year  before  the  Restoration  of 
the  Society.  He  was  not  however  forgotten  in  his 
native  city,  which  regarded  him  as  one  of  its  glories. 
Among  his  works  were  several  of  an  ascetic  character 
such  as  "  The  Sacred  Heart,"  "  The  Month  of  Mary," 
and  also  a  "Life  of  St.  Francis  Hieronymo." 

There  were  also  a  few  modern  Jesuits  who  were 
conspicuous  in  moral  theology.  First,  in  point  of 
time  was  Jean-Pierre  Gury,  who  was  born  in  Mailleron- 
court  on  January  23,  1801.  He  taught  theology  for 
thirty-five  years  at  Annecy  and  at  the  Roman  College. 
He  died  on  April  18,  1866.  His  work  was  adopted  as 
a  text-book  in  a  number  of  seminaries,  because  of  its 
brevity,  honesty  and  solidity.  It  is  true  that  his 
brevity  impaired  his  accuracy  at  times,  as  well  as 
the  scientific  presentation  of  questions,  but  his 
successors  such  as  Seitz,  Cercia,  Melandri  and  Ballerini 
filled  up  the  gaps  by  the  help  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Congregations  and  the  more  recent  pronouncements 
of  the  Holy  See.  Besides  his  "  Moral  Theology  "  he 
also  published  his  "  Casus  conscientiae."  That  made 
him  the  typical  "  Jesuit  Casuist,"  and  drew  on  him 
all  the  traditional  hatred  of  Protestant  polemicists, 
especially  in  Germany.  His  work  did  much  to  extirpate 
what  was  left  of  Jansenism  in  Europe. 


886  The  Jesuits 

Antonio  Ballerini  held  the  chair  of  moral  theology 
in  the  Roman  College  from  1856  until  his  death  in 
1 88 1.  In  the  cautious  words  of  Hurter  he  was  "  almost 
the  prince  of  moralists  of  our  times."  Besides  his 
"  Principi  della  scuola  Rosminiana "  he  wrote  his 
remarkable  "  Sylloge  monumentorum  ad  mysterium 
Immaculatae  Conceptionis  illustrandum,"  and  in  1863 
issued  his  "  De  morali  systemate  S.  Alphonsi  M.  de  Li- 
gorio."  In  1866  appeared  his  "  Compendium  theologiae 
moralis."  The  style  was  somewhat  acrid,  and  sharp,  es- 
pecially in  the  controversy  it  provoked  with  the  out-and- 
out  defenders  of  St.  Alphonsus.  His  annotations  were 
a  mine  of  erudition  and  revealed  at  the  same  time 
a  very  unusual  intellectual  sagacity  and  correctness  of 
judgment.  His  book,  on  the  whole,  exercised  a  great 
influence  in  promoting  solid  theological  study;  and 
its  denunciation  of  the  frivolous  reasons  on  which 
many  opinions  were  based  and  the  unreliableness  of 
many  quotations  decided  the  tone  of  subsequent 
works  by  other  authors.  Following  Ballerini  were 
other  Jesuits  such  as  Lehmkuhl,  Sabbetti,  Noldin, 
Genicot  and  Palmieri,  who  won  fame  as  moralists. 

Palmieri  was  not  only  a  theologian,  a  moralist 
and  a  philosopher,  but  an  exegete.  He  taught  Scripture 
and  the  Oriental  languages  in  Maastricht  for  seven 
years,  and  in  1886,  published  a  Commentary  on  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  and  another  on  the  historicity 
of  the  Book  of  Judith.  He  was  among  the  first  to 
sound  the  alarm  about  Loisy's  heterodoxy  and  he  wrote 
several  books  against  the  Modernistic  errors.  His 
reputation  rests  chiefly  on  his  dogmatic  theology; 
every  two  years,  from  1902,  he  issued  treatises  that 
immediately  attracted  attention  for  their  brilliant 
originality  and  exhaustive  learning.  He  died  in  Rome 
on  May  29,  1909.  "  This  superlatively  sagacious 
man,"  says  Hurter,  "  blended  Gury  and  the  super- 


Literature  887 

abundant  commentaries  of  Ballerini  into  one  con- 
tinuous text,  injecting,  of  course,  his  own  personal  views 
into  his  seven  great  volumes,  with  the  result  that  it 
is  a  positive  pleasure  to  read  him.  The  wonderful 
theological  acumen  manifested  in  this,  as  in  his 
other  works  apparently  restored  him  to  favor  with 
Leo  XIII,  who  disliked  some  of  his  philosophical 
speculations.  Hence,  when  Father  Steinhuber  was 
made  cardinal,  Palmieri  was  appointed  to  succeed  him 
as  theologian  of  the  Penitentiaria. 

Besides  all  this,  Palmieri  gave  a  delightful  revelation 
of  his  affectionate  character  as  a  devoted  son,  when 
he  wrote,  at  the  request  of  his  mother,  a  Commentary 
of  Dante.  Ojetti  says  that  "  he  brought  all  the  pro- 
fundity of  his  philosophy  and  theology  to  his  task 
and  produced  a  work  which  astonished  those  who 
were  able  to  appreciate  the  depth  of  the  thought  and 
the  scientific  erudition  employed  in  the  exposition  of 
each  individual  canto." 

The  great  Perrone  was  born  in  Chieri  in  17  94  and  en- 
tered the  Society  on  December  14, 1815,  one  of  the  first 
novices  after  the  Re-establishment.  He  began  his 
career  as  professor  of  dogma  at  Orvieto,  and  from  thence 
was  transferred  to  Rome,  where  he  remained  until  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution  in  1848.  After  a  three 
years'  stay  in  England  he  resumed  his  place  at  the 
Roman  College.  He  was  consultor  of  various  con- 
gregations, was  conspicuous  as  the  antagonist  of 
Hermes,  and  also  in  the  discussion  that  ended  in  the 
dogmatic  definition  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. 
His  "  Praelectiones  theologiae  "  in  nine  volumes  reached 
its  thirty-fourth  edition,  while  its  "  Compendium " 
saw  fifty-seven. 

Carlo  Passaglia  is  another  great  theological  luminary. 
He  entered  the  Society  in  1827,  and  when  scarcely 
thirty  years  old  was  teaching  at  the  Sapienza  and 


888  The  Jesuits 

was  prefect  of  studies  at  the  Collegium  Germanicum. 
The  Gregorian  University  then  claimed  him,  and,  in 
1850,  he  took  a  leading  part  in  preparing  the  definition 
of  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  on  which 
he  wrote  three  large  volumes.  Other  great  works 
are  to  his  credit,  but  his  historico-linguistic  method 
met  with  criticism.  It  was  said  he  substituted  grammar 
for  dogma.  Passaglia  left  the  Society,  however,  in 
1859.  Pius  IX  gave  him  a  chair  in  the  Sapienza; 
there  he  came  in  contact  with  an  agent  of  Cavour 
and  under  his  influence  wrote  his  book  "  Pro  causa 
italica."  It  was  placed  on  the  "  Index,"  and  Passaglia 
fled  to  Turin,  where  he  taught  moral  philosophy  until 
his  death  and  edited  a  weekly  called  "  II  Medicatore," 
which  welcomed  articles  from  discontented  priests. 
He  also  published  a  daily  paper  called  "  La  Pace," 
as  well  as  "II  Gerdil,"  a  theological  review.  He  was 
suspended  from  his  priestly  functions,  dressed  as 
a  layman,  and  was  temerarious  enough  to  criticise 
the  Syllabus.  The  Bishop  of  Mondovi  tried  to  recon- 
cile him  with  the  Church,  but  he  did  not  retract  until 
a  few  months  before  his  death.  Hurter  calls  him 
"  an  illustrious  professor  of  dogma  who  was  carried 
away  by  politics,  left  the  Society,  assailed  the  Temporal 
Power,  and  by  his  sad  defection  cast  a  stain  on  his 
former  glory.  His  quotations  from  the  Fathers  are 
too  diffuse,  and  although  his  work  on  the  Immaculate 
Conception  displays  immense  erudition  it  crushes  the 
reader  by  its  bulk." 

Carlo  Maria  Curci  also  brought  grief  to  his  associates 
in  those  days.  He  had  acquired  great  fame  for  his, 
defense  of  the  rights  of  the  Pope  against  the  Liberal 
politicians  of  the  Peninsula,  but  unfortunately,  soon 
after,  became  a  Liberal  himself  and  left  the  Society. 
He  returned  again,  however,  shortly  before  his  death 
which  occurred  on  June  19,  1891,  He  was  one  of 


Literature  889 

the  first  contributors  to  the  "  Civilta "  and  was, 
besides,  a  remarkable  orator.  His ' '  Nature  and  Grace, ' ' 
"  Christian  Marriage,"  "  Lessons  from  the  two  books 
of  the  Machabees  and  the  Four  Gospels,"  and  "  Joseph 
in  Egypt  "  were  the  most  notable  of  his  writings. 

Josef  Wilhelm  Karl  Kleutgen  was  a  Westphalian. 
He  entered  the  Society  on  April  28,  1834,  at  Brieg; 
to  avoid  difficulties  with  the  German  Government 
he  became  a  naturalized  Swiss,  and  for  some  time 
went  by  the  name  of  Peters.  In  1 843  he  was  professor  of 
sacred  eloquence  in  the  Collegium  Germanicum, 
and  subsequently  was  named  substitute  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  Father  General,  consultor  of  the  Congregation 
of  the  Index,  and  collaborator  in  the  preparation  of 
the  Constitution  "  De  fide  catholica  "  of  the  Vatican 
Council.  He  wrote  the  first  draft  of  Pope  Leo's 
Encyclical  "  ^Eterni  Patris  "  on  the  revival  of  Scholastic 
theology  and  philosophy.  His  knowledge  of  the 
writings  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  was  so  great  that  he  was 
called  Thomas  redivivus.  His  first  work  "  Theologie 
der  Vorseit "  and  his  "  Philosophic  der  Vorseit " 
against  Hermes,  Hirscher,  and  Gunther  were  declared 
to  be  epoch-making.  The  writing  of  these  books 
coincided  with  a  remarkable  event  in  his  life,  namely 
suspension  from  his  priestly  office  for  his  imprudence  in 
allowing  a  community  of  nuns  under  his  direction  to 
honor  as  a  saint  one  of  their  deceased  members.  He 
went  into  seclusion  consequently  but  at  the  opening 
of  the  Vatican  Council  he  was  recalled  by  Pius  IX  to 
take  part  in  it.  All  his  works  excel  in  solidity  of 
doctrine,  accuracy  and  brilliancy  of  exposition  and 
nobility  of  style. 

Johann  Franzelin  was  a  Tyrolese.  He  entered  the 
Society  on  27  July,  1834,  but  passed  most  of  his  life 
outside  of  his  country.  He  studied  theology  in  Rome, 
and  became  such  an  adept  in  Greek  and  Hebrew  that 


890  The  Jesuits 

he  occupied  the  chair  when  the  professor  was  ill.  He 
had  to  leave  the  city  in  the  troublous  times  of  1848, 
but  on  his  return  he  gave  public  lectures  in  the  Roman 
College  on  Oriental  languages.  In  1857  he  began  his 
career  as  professor  of  dogma  and  his  immense  erudition 
caused  him  to  be  called  for  in  many  of  the  Roman 
congregations.  In  1876  Pius  IX  created  him  cardinal. 
His  theological  works  are  known  throughout  the  Church 
for  their  solidity,  erudition  and  scrupulous  accuracy. 
His  dignity  made  no  change  in  his  simple  and  laborious 
life.  He  continued  until  the  end  of  his  days  to  wear 
poor  garments,  occupied  two  small  rooms  in  the  Novitiate 
of  Sant'  Andrea,  rose  at  four  every  morning  and  spent 
the  time  until  seven  in  devotional  exercises.  He  kept 
up  his  penitential  practises  till  death  came  on 
ii  December,  1886. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


Devotion,  Trust  and  Affection  of  each  Pope  of  the  Nineteenth  and 
Twentieth  Centuries  manifested  in  their  Official  and  Personal  Rela- 
tions with  the  Society. 

THE  restored  Society,  like  the  old,  has  been  the  recip- 
ient of  many  favors  from  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs. 
Pius  VI  would  have  immediately  undone  the  work  of 
Clement  XIV,  had  it  been  at  all  possible;  and  Pius  VII 
faced  the  wrath  of  all  the  kings  and  statesmen  of 
Europe  by  issuing  the  Bull  that  put  back  the  Society 
in  the  place  it  had  previously  occupied  in  the  Church. 

The  election  of  Leo  XII,  who  succeeded  Pius  VII  on 
September  28,  1823,  had,  at  first,  thrown  consternation 
among  the  members  of  the  Order,  because  of  his 
previous  attitude  as  Cardinal  della  Genga.  He  had 
been  associated  with  its  enemies  and  had  uttered 
very  harsh  words  about  the  Society,  but  it  soon  became 
evident  that  it  was  all  due  to  the  impression  which  the 
plotters  had  given  him  that  they  were  fighting  against 
the  influence  of  Paccanarism  in  certain  members  of 
the  congregation.  When  he  became  Pope,  he  under- 
stood better  the  facts  of  the  case  and  became  one  of 
the  warmest  friends  the  Society  ever  had. 

On  May  7,  1824,  he  recalled  the  Fathers  to  the  Roman 
College  and  gave  them  a  yearly  revenue  of  12,000 
scudi,  besides  restoring  to  them  the  Church  of  St. 
Ignatius,  the  Caravita  Oratory,  the  museum,  the 
library,  the  observatory,  etc.  He  entrusted  to  them 
the  direction  of  the  College  of  Nobles;  assigned  to  them 
the  Villa  of  Tivoli;  set  apart  new  buildings  for  the 
Collegium  Germanicum,  and  on  July  4,  1826,  he 

891 


892  The  Jesuits 

established  them  in  the  College  of  Spoleto,  which  he 
had  founded  for  the  teaching  of  humanities,  philosophy, 
civil  and  canon  law,  theology  and  holy  Scripture; 
for  all  of  which  he  had  provided  ample  revenues. 

In  the  same  year  he  issued  the  celebrated  Bull 
"  Plura  inter,"  restoring  the  ancient  privileges  of  the 
Society  and  adding  new  ones.  This  list  of  spiritual 
favors  fills  seven  complete  columns.  "  Everyone  is 
aware,"  he  said  in  the  Bull,  "  how  many  and  how  great 
were  the  services  performed  by  this  Society,  which 
was  the  fruitful  mother  of  men  who  were  conspicuous 
for  their  piety  and  learning.  From  it  we  expect  still 
more  in  the  future,  seeing  that  it  is  extending  its 
branches  so  widely  even  before  it  has  taken  new  root. 
For  not  only  in  Rome  but  in  Transalpine  countries 
and  in  the  remotest  regions  of  the  world,  it  is  affec- 
tionately received,  because  it  leaves  nothing  undone  to 
train  youth  in  piety  and  the  liberal  arts,  in  order  to 
make  them  the  future  ornaments  of  their  respective 
countries." 

On  July  27,  he  increased  the  revenues  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Beneventum,  and  on  October  n,  of  the  same 
year,  he  told  the  people  of  Faenza  that  he  could  not, 
just  then,  give  them  a  Jesuit  College  because  of  the 
lack  of  funds,  but  that  he  would  meet  their  wishes  as 
soon  as  possible.  The  very  month  before  his  death, 
he  sent  encouraging  words  to  the  Fathers  in  England, 
who  were  harassed  by  all  sorts  of  calumnious  accusa- 
tions, and  told  the  Bishop  of  Thespia  that  "  the 
English  scholastics  could  be  ordained  sub  titulo  pauper- 
tatis,  and  had  a  right  to  the  same  privileges  as  other 
religious  orders  in  England."  Finally,  he  would  have 
appointed  Father  Kohlmann  Bishop  of  New  York  and 
Father  Kenny  to  the  See  of  Dromore,  had  not  the 
General  persuaded  him  not  to  do  so.  The  same 
thing  occurred  in  the  case  of  Father  Pallavicini  who  was 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         893 

named  for  the  See  of  Reggio  in  Calabria.  Pope  Leo  XII 
died  on  February  10,  1829,  a  few  days  after  the  demise 
of  Father  Fortis,  who  was  his  affectionate  and  intimate 
friend. 

The  name  of  his  successor,  Pius  VIII,  was  Francis 
Xavier  Castiglione  —  a  good  omen  for  the  brethren  of 
the  great  Apostle.  Indeed,  brief  though  his  pontificate 
was,  he  always  made  it  clear  that  the  Society  was  very 
dear  to  him.  "  I  have  always  let  it  be  known,"  he 
said  to  the  Fathers  who  had  presented  themselves  to 
greet  him  at  his  accession,  "and  I  shall  avail  myself 
of  every  occasion  to  declare  that  I  love  the  Society  ot 
Jesus.  From  my  earliest  childhood  that  feeling  was 
deep  in  my  heart,  and  I  have  always  profoundly 
venerated  St.  Ignatius  and  St.  Francis  Xavier.  I 
bear,  all  unworthy  as  I  am,  the  name  of  Xavier.  I 
have  been  taught  by  the  most  distinguished  Jesuits, 
and  I  know  how  much  good  they  have  done  for  the 
Church,  so  that  as  the  Church  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  Pope,  he  cannot  be  separated  from  the 
Society.  These  are  sad  days  and  there  never  was 
witnessed  greater  audacity  and  hate.  Impiety  has 
never  employed  greater  cunning  against  the  truth. 
Perhaps  very  soon  other  grievous  wounds  will  be 
inflicted  on  the  Church ;  but  together  we  shall  fight  the 
enemies  of  God.  Return  to  your  provinces,  therefore, 
and  arouse  in  your  brethren  the  same  ardor  that  is 
in  your  hearts.  Preach  and  teach  obedience  and 
integrity  of  life  in  your  schools,  in  your  pulpits,  by 
voice  and  pen,  and  with  all  your  soul.  May  God 
second  your  efforts.  Meantime  keep  always  unshaken 
in  the  assurance  that  I  shall  always  be,  before  all, 
your  most  tender  and  devoted  Father." 

On  December  2,  1829,  accompanied  by  Cardinals 
Somaglia  and  Odescalchi  he  went  to  the  Gesu,  and 
after  praying  at  the  altar  of  St.  Francis  Xavier, 


894  The  Jesuits 

published  the  beatification  of  Alphonsus  Liguori,  the 
founder  of  the  Redemptorist  Order.  He  lavished 
favors  on  the  Germanico-Hungarico  and  the  College 
of  Nobles;  and  when  Charles  Augustus  von  Reisach, 
a  student  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum  who  was 
very  young  at  the  time,  was  named  rector  of  the 
Propaganda,  the  Pope  said  to  those  who  referred  to  it : 
"  Never  mind;  he  is  young  but  he  has  studied  in  the 
best  of  schools  and  every  one  praises  him  for  the  matu- 
rity of  his  character,  his  irreproachable  life  and  his 
fitness  for  the  office." 

When  this  devoted  friend  of  the  Society  died,  Car- 
dinal Cappellari,  the  learned  Camaldolese  monk, 
ascended  the  pontifical  throne  and  took  the  name 
Gregory  XVI.  Fifteen  days  afterwards  all  Italy  was 
in  the  throes  of  Revolution.  The  Carbonari  were  in 
control,  and  as  usual  the  Society  felt  the  first  blow. 
On  February  lyth,  at  the  same  hour,  the  colleges  of 
Spoleto,  Fano,  Modena,  Reggio,  Forli  and  Ferrara  were 
attacked  and  the  masters  and  pupils  thrown  out  in 
the  street.  A  decree  of  banishment  was  issued,  but 
the  people  arose  in  their  wrath,  suppressed  the  in- 
surrection and  the  Fathers  were  re-instated. 

When  peace  was  restored,  the  Pope  gave  a  notable 
illustration  of  his  esteem  for  the  Society.  He  sum- 
moned all  the  religious  of  the  various  orders  in  Rome 
to  the  Gesu  to  make  the  Spiritual  Exercises.  A  short 
time  afterwards,  at  the  instance  of  the  Propaganda, 
he  entrusted  to  it  the  administration  of  several  col- 
leges and  formulated  the  concessions  in  the  most  eulo- 
gistic of  terms,  declaring  among  other  things  that  a 
long  and  happy  experience  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Institute  until  the  present  time,  and  in  divers 
parts  of  the  world,  had  shown  the  Holy  See  the 
incontestable  aptitude  of  the  Fathers  for  directing 
both  clerical  and  secular  schools.  The  same  convic- 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         895 

tion,  he  said  later,  also  prompted  him  to  give  them 
the  Illyrian  College. 

The  cholera  which  was  sweeping  over*  Europe 
finally  reached  Rome.  The  Pope  had  already  estab- 
lished ambulances  and  hospitals  in  various  parts 
of  the  city,  and  his  appeal  to  the  religious  sentiments 
of  the  people  prevented  the  frightful  orgies  which 
had  disgraced  London,  Madrid  and  Paris  when  simi- 
larly afflicted.  Cardinal  Odescalchi,  soon  to  be  a 
Jesuit,  was  especially  conspicuous  in  tranquillizing  the 
populace,  and  a  solemn  ceremony  in  which  the  entire 
city  participated  is  especially  worthy  of  note,  since 
it  was  intended  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  to  be  an 
official  announcement  that  while  the  pestilence  lasted, 
the  Jesuit  Fathers  were  to  be  the  principal  channel 
of  the  Papal  charities.  The  miraculous  picture  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin  was  carried  in  procession  from  St. 
Mary  Major's  to  the  Gesu  and,  in  spite  of  the  stifling 
heat,  the  Pope  himself,  surrounded  by  his  cardinals, 
the  clergy  and  the  principal  civil  officials,  accom- 
panied the  picture  through  the  kneeling  multitudes  in 
the  streets,  and  placed  it  on  the  altar  in  the  Jesuit 
church,  which  thus  became  the  prayer  centre  for  the 
city  while  the  pestilence  lasted. 

On  August  23,  1837,  it  struck  the  city  at  the  same 
moment  in  several  places.  Two  princesses  were  its 
first  victims,  but  the  Pope  in  person  went  wherever  the 
harvest  of  death  was  greatest,  and  his  example  inspired 
every  one  to  emulate  his  devotion.  Naturally  members 
of  the  Society  di'd  their  duty  in  those  terrible  days  when 
9,372  people  were  attacked  by  the  disease  and  more 
than  5,000  perished.  By  the  month  of  October  the 
plague  had  ceased. 

Cardinal  Odescalchi,  who  had  won  the  affection  of 
the  people  of  Rome  by  his  heroic  devotion  to  them 
at  this  crisis,  astounded  them  in  the  following  year 


896  The  Jesuits 

by  the  renunciation  of  the  exalted  dignities  which  he 
enjoyed  in  the  Church  and  in  the  State,  for  he  was 
a  prince  —  in  order  to  assume  the  humble  garb  and 
subject  himself  to  the  obedience  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  The  Pope  and  the  cardinals  endeavored  to 
dissuade  him  from  taking  the  step,  pleading  the  interests 
of  the  Church,  but  he  persisted,  and  on  the  day  of  his 
admission,  December  8,  1838,  he  wrote  to  Father 
Roothaan  to  say  that  he  could  not  describe  the  happi- 
ness that  he  felt,  and  he  requested  the  General  to 
deal  with  him  as  he  would  with  the  humblest  of  his 
subjects.  He  was  then  fifty-two  years  old.  He  died  at 
Modena,  on  August  17,  1841,  and  had  thus  been  able 
as  one  of  its  sons  to  celebrate  the  third  centenary  of 
the  Society,  which  occurred  in  1840.  There  was 
little  if  any  public  declaration,  however,  of  this  anni- 
versary, for  Father  Roothaan  had  sent  a  reminder 
to  all  the  provinces  that  the  dangers  of  the  time  made  it 
advisable  to  keep  all  manifestations  of  happiness  and  of 
gratitude  to  God  within  the  limits  of  the  domestic  circle. 

In  1836  an  imperial  edict  in  answer  to  a  popular 
demand  permitted  the  Jesuits  to  establish  schools 
anywhere  in  the  limits  of  the  Austrian  empire  and 
to  follow  their  own  methods  of  teaching  independently 
of  university  control.  The  emperor  and  empress 
honored  by  their  presence  the  first  college  opened 
in  Verona.  Other  cities  of  Italy  invited  the  Fathers 
to  open  schools,  and  Metternich,  who  is  sometimes 
cited  as  their  enemy,  allowed  them  to  install  themselves 
at  Venice,  where  a  remnant  of  antagonism  had  re- 
mained, ever  since  the  time  of  Paolo  Sarpi;  but  by  St. 
Ignatius  Day  in  1844  that  had  all  vanished  and  the 
patriarch,  the  doge,  the  nobility,  the  clergy  and  the 
people  united  in  giving  the  Fathers  a  cordial  welcome. 

In  the  Island  of  Malta,  which  had  become  a  British 
possession,  the  inhabitants  sent  a  letter  of  thanks  to 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         897 

Lord  Stanley,  the  secretary  of  State,  for  having  granted 
them  a  college  of  the  Society.  The  letter  had  4,000 
signatures.  The  Two  Sicilies  welcomed  the  Society  in 
1804  and  restored  to  it  the  Professed  house,  along  with 
the  Collegium  Maximum  and  the  old  churches;  other 
establishments  were  begun  elsewhere  in  the  kingdom. 
After  the  Jesuits  had  been  expelled  by  the  Carbonari 
in  1820  the  usual  reaction  occurred  and  they  were 
soon  back  at  their  posts.  The  cholera  of  1837  gave 
them  a  new  hold  on  the  affection  of  the  people,  and 
for  the  moment  their  position  in  the  kingdom  appeared 
to  be  absolutely  secure. 

During  the  fifteen  years  of  his  pontificate,  Gregory 
XVI  published  no  less  than  fifteen  rescripts  in  favor 
of  the  Society.  On  March  30,  1843,  he  empowered 
Georgetown  College  in  Washington  to  confer  philo- 
sophical and  theological  degrees.  In  the  following 
year  he  restored  the  Illyrian  College,  which  Gregory 
XIII  had  established  at  Loreto,  and  gave  it  to  the 
Society  together  with  the  Villa  Leonaria.  At  the  re- 
quest of  Cardinal  Franzoni,  the  prefect  of  the  Propa- 
ganda, he  turned  over  the  Urban  College  to  the  Society, 
and  in  the  rescript  announcing  the  transfer  he  said: 
"  Whereas  the  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda  was 
convinced  that  the  instruction  of  the  young  clerics  who 
are  to  be  sent  to  foreign  parts  to  spread  the  light  of 
the  Gospel  and  to  cultivate  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord 
could  not  be  better  trained  for  such  a  task  than  by 
those  religious  who  make  it  the  special  work  of  their 
Institute  to  form  youth  in  piety,  literature  and  science, 
and  who  always  strive  intensely  in  whatever  they 
undertake  to  promote  the  greater  glory  of  God;  and 
whereas,  from  the  very  establishment  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  the  Church  has  had  daily  experience  of  the 
aptitude  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  in  the  education 
of  youth  both  in  secular  and  clerical  pursuits  in  all 
57 


'898  The  Jesuits 

parts  of  the  world;  and  whereas  the  testimony  which 
even  the  enemies  of  the  Holy  See  and  of  the  Church 
are  compelled  by  the  evidence  of  things  to  pay  to  the 
Society  of  Jesus  for  the  excellent  education  which  the 
youth  of  their  colleges  receive,  we  do  therefore  assent 
most  willingly  to  the  petition  of  the  lord  cardinal  of 
the  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda." 

On  October  u,  1838,  a  chair  of  canon  law  was 
erected  in  the  Roman  College.  In  the  following  year 
on  March  5,  the  Pontiff  gave  the  Society  the  College 
of  Fermo,  and  on  September  28,  the  College  of  Camerino. 
In  brief,  there  was  no  end  of  the  spiritual  favors  which 
Gregory  XVI  bestowed  on  the  Society  through  its 
General,  Father  Roothaan,  whom  he  honored  with  his 
most  intimate  friendship. 

Pius  IX  succeeded  Gregory  XVI,  and  although  he 
greatly  esteemed  Rosmini,  who  was  attacked  for  his 
philosophical  views  by  the  Jesuits,  chiefly  by  Melia, 
Passaglia,  Rozaven  and  Ballerini,  that  did  not  affect 
the  great  Pontiff's  affection  for  the  Society.  Hence 
when  the  procurators  at  their  meeting  of  1847  presented 
themselves  to  His  Holiness  to  protest  against  the 
charge  that  they  were  averse  to  his  governmental 
policies,  he  assured  them  that  he  was  well  aware  of 
the  calumnious  nature  of  the  accusation.  He  repeated 
the  same  words  in  1853  to  the  electors  of  the  twenty- 
second  general  congregation,  and  in  1860,  when  Gari- 
baldi expelled  the  Jesuits  from  the  Two  Sicilies,  Pope 
Pius  not  only  welcomed  the  refugees  to  Rome,  but, 
when  they  arrived,  went  in  person  to  console  them. 
"  Let  us  suffer  with  equanimity,"  he  said,  "whatever 
God  wishes.  Persecution  always  brings  courage  to 
Catholics.  What  you  have  suffered  is  passed.  What 
is  to  come  who  knows?  It  is  splendid,"  he  said  as 
he  withdrew,  "  to  see  that  even  when  you  are  scourged 
you  do  not  cease  to  work." 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         899 

Not  only  did  he  comfort  them  verbally,  but  he  issued 
as  many  as  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  briefs  and 
Bulls,  in  each  of  which  some  favor  was  conferred  on 
the  Society.  He  beatified  seventy-seven  Jesuits  and 
canonized  three  of  them.  He  gave  the  College  of 
Tephernatum  to  the  Society  and  endowed  it  richly. 
In  1850  he  ordered  Father  General,  who  was  hesitating 
because  of  the  difficulty  of  the  work,  to  establish  the 
"  Civilta  Cattolica."  In  1851  he  built  and  endowed 
a  college  at  Valiternb,  and  gave  them  another  at 
Sinigaglia.  He  entrusted  to  them  the  Collegium  Pio- 
Latinum  Americanum,  a  confidence  in  their  ability 
which  was  reaffirmed  in  1908  by  Pius  X  when 
he  said:  "For  fifty  years  this  college  has  been  of 
singular  advantage  to  the  Church  by  forming  a  learned 
body  of  holy  bishops  and  distinguished  ecclesiastics." 

As  for  Leo  XIII,  he  was  during  his  entire  life 
intimately  associated  with  the  Society.  "  You  Jesuits 
have  enjoyed  the  great  privilege,"  he  once  said  to  a 
Father  of  the  Roman  Province,  "  of  having  had 
saints  for  Generals.  I  knew  Father  Fortis;  he  was  a 
saint.  I  knew  Father  Roothaan  intimately;  he  was 
a  saint.  I  was  long  acquainted  with  Father  Beckx; 
he  was  a  saint.  And  now  you  have  Father  Anderledy." 

On  February  25,  1881,  he  gave  to  the  college  at 
Beirut  in  Syria  the  power  of  conferring  degrees  in 
philosophy  and  theology.  Four  years  later  when  there 
was  question  of  a  new  edition  of  the  third  volume  of 
the  Institute,  and  Father  Anderledy  had  asked  His 
Holiness  to  re-affirm  the  ancient  privileges  of  the 
Society,  Leo  XIII  replied  with  the  Brief  "  Dolemus 
inter,"  which  is  regarded  by  the  Society  as  one  of  its 
great  treasures.  After  expressing  his  sorrow  for  the 
persecution  which  it  was  just  then  suffering  in  France, 
the  Pope  says:  "  In  order  that  our  will  with  regard 
to  the  Society  of  Jesus  may  be  more  thoroughly  under- 


900  The  Jesuits 

stood,  we  hereby  declare  that  each  and  every  Apostolic 
letter  which  concerns  the  establishment,  the  institution 
and  confirmation  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  which 
has  been  published  by  our  predecessors,  the  Roman 
Pontiffs,  beginning  with  Paul  III  of  happy  memory, 
up  to  our  own  time  either  by  briefs  or  Bulls,  and 
whatever  is  contained  in  them  or  follows  from  them 
and  which  either  directly  or  by  participation  with 
other  religious  orders  has  been  granted  to  the  Society 
and  has  not  been  abrogated  or  revoked  in  whole  or 
in  part  by  the  Council  of  Trent  and  other  Constitutions 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  namely,  its  privileges,  immunities, 
exemptions  and  indults,  we  hereby  confirm  by  these 
letters,  and  fortify  them  by  the  strength  of  our  Apostolic 
authority  and  once  more  concede.  .  .  Let  these 
letters  be  a  witness  of  the  love  which  we  have  always 
cherished  and  still  cherish  for  the  illustrious  Society  of 
Jesus  which  has  been  most  devoted  to  Our  Predecessors 
and  to  Us;  which  has  been  the  fruitful  mother  of  men 
who  are  distinguished  for  their  holiness  and  wisdom,  and 
the  promoter  of  sound  and  solid  doctrine,  and  which, 
although  it  suffered  grievous  persecution  for  justice 
sake,  has  never  ceased  to  labor  with  a  cheerful  and 
unconquerable  courage  in  cultivating  the  vineyard 
of  the  Lord.  Let  this  well-deserving  Society  of  Jesus, 
therefore,  which  was  commended  by  the  Council  of 
Trent  itself  and  whose  accumulated  glory  has  been 
proclaimed  by  Our  Predecessors,  continue  in  spite  of 
the  multiplied  attacks  of  perverse  men  against  the 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ  to  follow  its  Institute  in 
its  fight  for  the  greater  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation 
of  souls.  Let  the  Society  continue  in  its  efforts  to 
bring  to  pagan  nations  and  to  heretics  the  light  of 
truth,  to  imbue  the  youth  of  our  times  with  virtue 
and  learning,  and  to  inculcate  the  teachings  of  the 
Angelical  doctor  in  our  schools  of  philosophy  and 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         901 

theology.  Meantime,  embracing  this  Society  of  Jesus, 
which  is  most  beloved  by  Us,  We  impart  to  its  Father 
General  and  his  vicar  and  to  all  and  each  of  its  members 
our  Apostolic  benediction." 

On  the  occasion  of  his  golden  jubilee  in  1888,  he 
showed  his  esteem  for  the  Society  by  canonizing  Peter 
Claver,  and  when  the  Fathers  went  to  express  their 
gratitude  for  this  mark  of  affection,  he  replied  that  the 
Society  had  always  been  dear  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs, 
considering  it  as  they  did  to  be  a  bulwark  of  religion, 
and  a  most  valiant  legion  that  was  always  ready  to 
undertake  the  greatest  labors  for  the  Church  and  the 
salvation  of  souls.  To  himself  personally  it  had  always 
been  very  dear.  He  had  shown  this  affection  as 
soon  as  he  was  made  Pope,  by  making  a  cardinal  of 
Father  Mazzella,  whose  virtue  and  doctrine  he  held  in 
the  highest  esteem,  and  by  employing  Cardinal  Franzelin 
as  long  as  he  lived  in  the  most  important  and  most 
secret  negotiations.  Neither  of  whom  ever  waited  for 
the  expression  of  his  wish.  A  mere  suggestion  sufficed. 
He  then  began  to  speak  of  his  boyhood  in  the  College 
of  Viterbo,  where  he  had  learned  to  love  the  Jesuit 
teachers,  and  he  went  on  to  say  that  his  affection 
had  increased  in  the  Roman  College  under  such  eminent 
masters  as  Taparelli,  Manera,  Perrone,  Caraffa  and 
others  whom  he  named.  He  spoke  enthusiastically  of 
Father  Roothaan,  and  then  reverting  to  Blessed  John 
Berchmans  whom  he  had  canonized,  he  told  how  his 
devotion  to  the  boy  saint  began  in  his  early  college 
days  of  Viterbo. 

In  1896  he  showed  his  approval  of  the  Society's 
theology  by  giving  it  the  Institutum  Leoninum  at 
Anagni,  and  in  the  Motu  proprio  which  he  issued  on 
that  occasion,  he  said:  "To  the  glory  which  the 
Society  acquired  even  in  its  earliest  days  among 
learned  men,  by  its  scientific  achievements  and  the 


902  The  Jesuits 

excellent  work  it  accomplished  in  doctrinal  matters, 
must  be  added  the  art  which  is  so  full  of  cleverness 
and  initiative  of  instilling  knowledge  and  piety  in  the 
hearts  of  their  scholars.  Such  has  been  their  reputation 
throughout  their  history,  and  we  recall  with  pleasure 
that  we  have  had  the  opportunity  of  studying  under 
the  most  distinguished  Jesuits.  Hence,  as  soon  as 
by  the  Providence  of  God  we  were  called  to  the  Supreme 
Pontificate,  we  asked  more  than  once  that  young  men, 
especially  those  who  were  to  consecrate  themselves 
to  the  Church,  should  be  trained  by  the  members 
of  the  Society,  both  in  our  own  city  and  in  distant 
countries  of  the  world.  We  recall  especially  in  this 
connection  their  work  among  the  Basilians  of  Galicia 
and  in  the  Xaverian  Seminary  which  we  established 
at  Kandy  in  the  East  Indies.  Hence,  wishing  to 
inaugurate  an  educational  institution  in  our  native 
city  of  Anagni,  we  cast  our  eyes  upon  the  members 
of  the  Society  and  in  neither  case  have  we  been 
disappointed." 

The  mention  of  the  Ruthenian  Basilians  refers  to  an 
extremely  delicate  work  entrusted  to  the  Jesuits. 
Something  had  gone  wrong  in  the  Basilian  province 
of  Ruthenia,  and  at  the  request  of  the  bishops  and  by 
command  of  the  Pope,  a  number  of  Galician  Jesuits 
took  up  their  abode  in  the  monastery  of  that  ancient 
and  venerable  Order,  and  after  twelve  years  of  labor 
restored  its  former  fervor.  One  scarcely  knows  which 
deserves  greater  commendation:  the  prudence  and 
skill  of  those  who  undertook  the  difficult  task  or  the 
humility  and  submission  of  those  who  were  the  objects 
of  it.  When  the  end  had  been  attained,  the  Jesuits 
asked  to  be  relieved  of  the  burden  of  direction  and 
government,  and  far  from  leaving  any  trace  of  resent- 
ment behind  them,  it  was  solemnly  declared  by  a 
general  congregation  of  the  Basilian  monks  that  the 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         903 

link  of  affection  which  had  been  established  between 
the  two  orders  was  to  endure  forever.  The  second 
apostolic  work  alluded  to  by  the  Pope  in  this  Brief  of 
1897,  was  the  Pontifical  Seminary  for  all  India  which 
he  had  built  on  the  Island  of  Ceylon  and  entrusted  to 
the  Belgian  Jesuits. 

In  1887,  he  had  established  a  hierarchy  of  thirty 
dioceses  in  the  Indies,  and  as  a  native  clergy  would 
have  to  be  provided,  an  ecclesiastical  seminary  was 
imperative.  The  Propaganda  was  therefore  com- 
missioned to  erect  the  buildings  and  provide  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  teachers,  and  in  virtue  of  the  com- 
mand 250  acres  of  land  were  bought  in  1892  near  the 
city  of  Kandy  on  the  Ampitiya  Hills.  Father  Gros- 
jean,  S.  J.,  was  appointed  superior  and  began  his 
work  in  a  bungalow.  It  took  five  years  before  any 
suitable  structures  could  be  provided.  The  course  of 
studies  included  three  years  of  philosophy  and  four 
years  of  theology.  There  is  now  a  staff  of  eleven  pro- 
fessors and  they  have  succeeded  in  overcoming  a  dif- 
ficulty which  seemed  at  first  insurmountable,  namely, 
the  grouping  together  under  one  roof  of  a  number  of 
men  who  were  of  different  castes  and  of  different  races. 
The  bishops  held  off  for  a  time,  and  in  the  first  year 
only  one  diocese  sent  its  pupils;  three  years  later,  seven 
were  represented  and  now  there  are  one  hundred  semi- 
narians from  all  parts  of  India.  They  are  so  well 
trained  that  it  is  a  rare  thing  for  the'm  not  to  satisfy 
their  bishops  when  they  return  as  priests.  '  The 
project  of  the  great  Pontiff,  Leo  XIII,"  says  the  Bel- 
gian chronicler,  "  seemed  audacious  but  the  results 
have  justified  it." 

The  Fathers  found  another  friend  in  Pius  X.  They 
knew  him  when  he  was  Bishop  of  Mantua,  and  he  not 
only  frequented  their  house  but  used  to  delight  to 
stand  at  the  gate  distributing  the  usual  dole  to  the  poor. 


904  The  Jesuits 

He  enjoyed  immensely  the  joke  of  the  coadjutor  brother 
who  said.  "  Bishop  Sarto  (sarto  means  tailor)  will 
make  a  fine  garment  for  the  Church  when  he  is  Pope;" 
though  the  holy  prelate  never  dreamt  of  any  such  honor 
in  those  days  or  even  when  he  was  Patriarch  of  Venice. 
When  he  went  to  his  new  see,  he  took  his  Jesuit  con- 
fessor with  him,  and  there,  as  at  Mantua,  he  was  at 
home  with  the  community  and  found  particular  delight 
in  talking  to  the  brothers.  When  Farther  Martin 
lost  his  arm  in  consequence  of  an  operation  for  sar- 
coma, the  Pope  gave  him  permission  to  celebrate 
Mass.  "  I  tried  it  myself  to  see  if  it  were  possible," 
he  said  "  and  I  found  it  could  be  done  without  much 
difficulty,  so  I  give  permission  to  Father  General  to 
offer  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  provided  another  priest  assists 
him."  When  the  new  General,  Father  Wernz,  and 
his  associates  presented  themselves  to  the  Pope  after 
the  election,  he  thanked  God  for  having  given  him  the 
Society,  which  he  described  as  "a  chosen  body  of 
soldiers,  who  were  skilled  in  war,  trained  to  fight, 
and  ready  at  the  first  sign  of  their  leader."  He  gave 
a  further  proof  of  the  trust  he  had  in  them  by  putting 
into  their  hands  the  Pontifical  Biblical  Institute,  which 
was  part  of  the  general  purpose  he  had  in  view  when, 
in  1901,  he  organized  the  Biblical  Commission  already 
described. 

Apart  from  the  esteem  manifested  by  the  Sovereign 
Pontiffs  for  the  Society  itself  as  a  religious  order,  their 
personal  regard  for  each  successive  General  is  worthy 
of  note.  Thus  Pius  VII,  on  being  informed  of  the 
election  of  Father  Brzozowski  as  General,  immediately 
expressed  his  gratification  by  letter  "  that  the  Society 
had  chosen  a  man  of  such  merit  and  virtue."  Leo  XII, 
as  we  have  said,  lived  on  the  most  intimate  and  affec- 
tionate terms  with  Father  Fortis.  Only  his  brief 
career  as  Pontiff  prevented  him  from  giving  more 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         905 

positive  proofs  of  his  affection.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  Pius  VIII,  whose  term  was  even  shorter  than  that  of 
Leo  XII.  During  that  time,  however,  he  lavished 
favors  on  the  Society.  Gregory  XVI  made  Father 
Roothaan  his  intimate  friend  and  gave  him  any  favor 
he  asked,  and  Pius  IX  expressed  the  wish  that  "  the 
Society  would  elect  a  General  of  equal  prudence  and 
wisdom,  and  who,  like  Roothaan,  would  be  a  man 
according  to  the  heart  of  God."  The  amiable  Father 
Beckx  was  always  welcomed  by  Pius  IX  and  their 
intercourse  with  each  other  was  almost  one  of  famil- 
iarity. When  the  General  was  on  his  death-bed,  Leo 
XIII  said  to  the  Roman  provincial:  "  I  am  deeply 
moved  by  the  illness  and  suffering  of  Father  Beckx 
for  whom  I  have  always  entertained  a  great  regard  and 
even  a  filial  affection.  I  most  willingly  send  him 
my  blessing;  tonight  in  his  pain  and  agony,  I  shall  be 
at  his  side  in  spirit  and  aid  him  with  my  prayers." 

In  Father  Beckx's  successor,  Father  Anderledy, 
Leo  XIII  had  absolute  confidence.  So  too,  Father 
Martin's  return  to  Rome  from  Fiesole  was  made  an 
occasion  of  great  rejoicing  for  the  Pope,  who  used  to 
ask  Cardinal  Aloysius  Massella  good  humoredly: 
"  Why  don't  you  give  up  your  office  and  be  a  Jesuit?" 
When  Father  Martin  presented  himself  for  an  audience 
in  times  of  trouble,  Leo  would  say  to  him  affectionately : 
"  Come  here,  Father  General  and  sit  beside  me  so  that 
we  can  talk  over  our  sorrows;  for  your  sufferings  are 
mine." 

Of  course,  affection  was  almost  expected  from  Pius  X, 
and  when  Father  Martin  returned  to  Rome  with  his 
health  slightly  improved,  his  reception  by  the  Pope 
was  like  that  of  a  son  coming  from  the  grave  to  the 
arms  of  his  father.  Later  on  he  kept  himself  informed 
about  Father  Martin's  suffering  and  prayed  for  him 
several  times  every  day.  "  We  cannot  spare  such 


906  The  Jesuits 

men"  was  his  expression ;  and  when  at  last  the  Gen- 
eral died,  the  Pope  was  deeply  affected.  "  He  was  a 
man  of  God,"  was  his  exclamation,  "  A  saint!  A  saint! 
A  saint !  "  At  the  election  of  Father  Wernz,  Pius  X  spoke 
of  the  great  good  he  had  done  to  the  whole  Church 
by  his  profound  learning  as  teacher  in  the  Gregorian 
University.  "  There  was  scarcely  any  part  of  the 
world,"  he  said,  "  where  his  merit  was  not  acknowledged. 
He  was  known  to  all  as  the  possessor  of  a  great,  solid 
and  sure  intelligence;  of  vast  erudition  which  found 
expression  in  his  learned  treatises  on  the  Law  of 
Decretals,  and  which  won  the  applause  of  all  who 
were  versed  in  canon  law." 

Another  mark  of  this  esteem  for  the  Society,  though  an 
unwelcome  one,  was  the  elevation  of  so  many  of  its  mem- 
bers to  ecclesiastical  dignities  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs. 
First,  in  point  of  time,  was  the  selection  of  John 
Carroll  to  be  the  founder  of  the  American  hierarchy. 
It  was  all  the  more  notable  because  Challoner,  the 
Vicar  Apostolic  of  London,  had  repeatedly  said  that 
there  was  no  one  in  America  who  measured  up  to  the 
height  of  the  episcopal  dignity.  The  sequel  proved 
that  the  Pontiff  was  wiser  than  the  Vicar.  We  have 
already  called  attention  to  the  fact  not  generally 
known  that  there  was  another  Jesuit  appointed  to  the 
See  of  Baltimore;  though  he  never  wore  the  mitre. 
He  died  before  the  Bulls  arrived.  His  name  was 
Laurence  Grassel,  and  he  had  been  a  novice  in  the 
Society  in  Germany  at  the  time  of  the  Suppression. 
Carroll  describes  him  as  "  a  most  amiable  ex- Jesuit." 
Shea  records  the  fact  that  "  the  Reverend  Laurence 
Grassel,  a  learned  and  devoted  priest,  of  whose  sanctity 
tradition  has  preserved  the  most  exalted  estimate, 
revived  the  missions  in  New  Jersey  which  had  been 
attended  by  the  Reverend  Messrs.  Schneider  and 
Farmer."  (Vol.  II.) 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         907 

Leonard  Neale,  who  succeeded  Archbishop  Carroll 
in  the  See  of  Baltimore,  was  a  Jesuit  priest  in  Liege 
at  the  Suppression.  Before  returning  to  his  native 
country,  he  spent  four  years  in  England  and  four  more 
in  Demerara.  In  Philadelphia,  when  vicar  general  of 
Bishop  Carroll,  he  was  stricken  with  yellow  fever  while 
administering  to  the  sick  during  the  pestilence.  Later 
he  was  made  president  of  Georgetown  College,  and  in 
1 80 1  was  appointed  Coadjutor  of  Baltimore.  The 
successor  of  the  illustrious  Cheverus  in  the  See  of 
Boston  was  Benedict  Fenwick,  who  had  entered  the 
Society  in  Maryland  eight  years  before  Pius  VII 
re-established  it  throughout  the  world.  The  first 
Bishop  of  New  York  also  would  have  been  a  Jesuit, 
Anthony  Kohlmann,  had  not  Father  Roothaan, 
entreated  the  Pope  to  withdraw  the  nomination. 

Anthony  Kohlmann  was  born  at  Kaisersberg  in 
Alsace,  July  13,  1771.  The  outbreak  of  the  French 
Revolution  compelled  him  to  leave  his  country  when 
he  was  a  young  man  and  betake  himself  to  Switzerland 
to  continue  his  interrupted  studies.  He  completed  his 
theological  course  and  was  ordained  a  priest  in  the 
College  of  Fribourg.  In  1796  he  joined  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  and 
labored  for  two  years  in  Austria  and  Italy  as  a  military 
chaplain.  We  find  him  next  at  Dillingen  in  Bavaria 
as  the  director  of  an  ecclesiastical  seminary.  By  this 
time  the  Fathers  of  the  Faith,  Paccanari's  organization, 
had  united  with  those  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  and  Kohl- 
mann was  dispatched  to  Berlin  and  subsequently  to 
Amsterdam  as  rector  of  a  new  college  in  that  place. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  that  the  Jesuits  in  White  Russia 
had  been  recognized  by  the  Pope,  he  applied  for 
admission,  and  entered  the  novitiate  at  Duneburg 
on  21  June,  1803,  and  in  the  following  year  was 
sent  to  Georgetown  as  assistant-master  of  novices. 


908  The  Jesuits 

While  holding  that  position  he  travelled  extensively 
through  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  to  look  after 
several  groups  of  German  colonists  who  had  settled  in 
those  states.  When  the  ecclesiastical  troubles  of  New 
York  were  at  their  height,  Bishop  Carroll  selected 
Kohlrnann  to  restore  order.  With  him  went  Father 
Benedict  Fenwick  and  four  scholastics.  He  was 
given  charge  of  that  whole  district  in  1808.  There 
were  about  fourteen  thousand  Catholics  there  at  the 
time:  French,  German  and  Irish.  In  1809  he  laid  the 
corner  stone  of  old  St.  Patrick's,  which  was  the  second 
church  in  the  city.  He  also  founded  the  New  York 
Literary  Institution  as  a  school  for  boys,  on  what  is 
now  the  site  of  the  present  cathedral,  but  which  then 
was  far  out  of  town.  In  1812  he  began  a  nearby 
school  for  girls  and  gave  it  to  the  Ursuline  nuns,  who 
had  been  sent  from  Ireland  for  that  purpose. 

Father  Kohlrnann  rendered  a  great  service  to  the 
Church  by  the  part  he  took  in  gaining  a  verdict  for 
the  protection  of  the  seal  of  Confession.  He  had 
acted  as  agent  in  the  restitution  of  stolen  money  when 
the  owner  of  it  demanded  the  name  of  the  thief.  As 
this  was  refused,  he  haled  the  priest  to  court,  but  the 
case  ended  in  a  decision  given  by  the  presiding  Judge, 
DeWitt  Clinton,  that  "  no  minister  of  the  Gospel  or 
priest  of  any  denomination  whatsoever  shall  be  allowed 
to  disclose  any  confession  made  to  him  in  his  pro- 
fessional character  in  the  course  of  discipline  enjoined 
by  the  rules  or  practices  of  such  denomination."  This 
decision  was  embodied  in  a  state  law  passed  on  Decem- 
ber 10,  1828.  His  controversy  with  Jared  Sparks, 
a  well-known  Unitarian,  brought  his  reply  entitled 
"  Unitarianism,  theologically  and  philosophically 
considered."  It  is  a  classic  on  that  topic. 

As  mentioned  above,  Kohlmann  was  designated  Bis- 
hop of  New  York,  but  at  the  entreaty  of  the  General  of 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         909 

the  Society,  the  Pope  withdrew  his  name.  In  1815 
he  returned  to  Georgetown  as  master  of  novices,  and 
in  1817  was  appointed  president  of  the  college.  In 
1.824  he  was  called  to  Rome  as  professor  of  theology 
in  the  Gregorian  University  and  occupied  that  post 
for  five  years.  Among  his  students  were  the  future 
Pope  Leo  XIII,  Cardinal  Cullen  of  Dublin,  and  Cardinal 
McCloskey  of  New  York.  Both  Leo  XII  and  Gregory 
XVI  held  Kohlmann  in  the  highest  esteem  and  had 
him  attached  to  them  as  consultor  to  the  staffs  of  the 
College  of  cardinals  and  to  several  important  con- 
gregations such  as  that  of  Extraordinary  Ecclesiastical 
Affairs;  of  Bishops  and  Regulars;  and  the  Inquisition. 
He  died  at  Rome  in  1836,  in  consequence  of  overwork 
in  the  confessional. 

It  might  be  of  interest  to  quote  here  a  passage  from 
the  "  Life  of  John  Cardinal  McCloskey  "  by  Cardinal 
Farley:  "  About  this  time  Father  McCloskey  suffered 
the  loss  of  a  very  dear  and  devoted  friend,  Father 
Anthony  Kohlmann,  S.  J.  As  pastor  of  St.  Peter's, 
Barclay  Street,  he  had  been  the  adviser  of  the  young 
priest's  parents  in  New  York  for  many  years.  He 
had  seen  him  grow  up  from  childhood,  and  had  been 
his  guide  and  friend  in  Rome.  It  is  therefore  but 
natural  that  he  should  express  himself  feelingly  on 
the  death  of  this  holy  man,  as  in  this  letter  addressed 
to  the  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Power: 

Rome,  April  15,  1836. 
'Very  Rev.  dear  Sir: 

'  It  is  truly  with  deep  regret  that  I  now  feel  it  my 
duty  to  acquaint  you  with  the  news  which,  if  not 
already  known  to  you,  cannot  but  give  you  pain. 
Our  venerable  and  most  worthy  friend,  Father  Kohl- 
mann, is  no  more.  He  has  been  summoned  to  another 
world,  after  a  warning  of  only  a  few  days.  On  Friday, 


910  The  Jesuits 

the  8th.  inst.,  he  was  as  usual  in  his  confessional. 
During  the  course  of  the  day  he  was  seized  with  a 
violent  fever  which  obliged  him  to  take  to  his  bed, 
and  on  Sunday  morning,  about  five  o'clock,  he  was 
a  corpse.  On  Monday,  I  had  the  melancholy  pleasure 
of  beholding  him  laid  out  in  the  Church  of  the  Gesu, 
where  numbers  were  assembled  to  show  respect  for  his 
memory,  and  to  view  for  a  little  time  his  mortal  remains. 
His  sickness  was  so  very  short  that  death  effected 
but  little  change  in  his  appearance.  He  seemed  to  be 
in  a  gentle  sleep,  such  calmness  and  placidity.  His 
countenance  seemed  to  have  lost  nothing  of  its  usual 
fulness  or  even  freshness.  And  such  was  the  composure 
of  every  feature,  that  one  could  hardly  resist  saying 
within  himself:  He  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth.  His 
loss  as  you  may  well  conceive,  is  deeply  regretted 
by  the  members  of  his  Order  here  as  well  as  by  all 
who  knew  him. 

'As  for  myself,  I  feel  his  death  most  sensibly,  having 
lost  in  him  so  prudent  a  director,  so  kind  a  father  and 
friend.  You  also,  Very  Reverend  and  dear  Sir,  are 
deprived  by  his  death  of  a  most  active  and  valuable 
friend  in  Rome.' ' 

In  Hughes's  "  History  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  North 
America  "  (I,  pt.  ii,  866)  there  is  a  quotation  from 
the  "  Memoirs "  of  Father  Grassi  which  refers  to 
Father  Kohlmann  and  calls  for  consideration.  He  is 
described  by  the  odious  name  of  Paccanarist.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Kohlmann  joined  the  Fathers  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  in  1796,  three  years  before  Paccanari 
was  even  heard  of.  In  April  1 799,  by  order  of  the  Pope, 
the  Fathers  of  the  Sacred  Heart  were  amalgamated 
with  Paccanari's  Fathers  of  the  Faith,  but  from  the 
very  beginning  there  was  distinct  cleavage  between 
the  two  sections;  and  in  1803  when  it  became  evident 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         911 

that  Paccanari  had  no  intention  of  uniting  with  the 
Jesuits  in  Russia,  Kohlmann  was  one  of  the  first  to 
separate  from  him  and  was  admitted  to  the  Society 
in  that  year.  If  he  was  a  "  Paccanarist,"  then  so 
were  Rozaven  and  Varin. 

We  are  also  informed  that  Kohlmann  was  an  ex-Capu- 
chin. It  is  strange,  however,  that  Guidee  makes  no 
mention  of  it  in  his  historical  sketches  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Sacred  Heart.  Moreover,  if  he  ever  were  a  member 
of  that  Order,  it  must  have  been  for  an  extremely 
brief  period;  for  he  was  born  in  1771,  and  at  the  out- 
break of  the  French  Revolution  which  swept  away 
all  religious  communities  he  was  only  eighteen  years 
of  age.  We  find  him  then  finishing  his  theological 
studies  at  Fribourg  where  the  Jesuits  had  been  con- 
spicuous before  the  Suppression,  and  he  was  ordained 
a  priest  in  1796,  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  old. 
Immediately  afterwards,  he  joined  the  Fathers  of  the 
Sacred  Heart.  So  that  if  he  ever  had  been  a  Capuchin 
it  must  have  been  at  a  very  early  age;  and  in  any 
case  he  did  not  leave  his  Order  voluntarily.  It  had 
been  swept  out  of  existence  in  the  general  storm. 

Grassi  tells  us  also  that,  out  of  pity  for  the  distressed 
religious  who  had  been  thrown  out  of  their  homes  at 
that  time,  the  General  of  the  Society  had  asked  the 
Pope  to  lift  the  ban  against  the  Society's  receiving 
into  its  ranks  the  members  of  other  Orders  —  a  policy 
which  it  had  always  pursued,  both  out  of  respect  for 
the  Orders  themselves,  and  because  a  change  in  such 
a  serious  matter  would  imply  instability  of  character 
in  the  applicant.  Father  Pignatelli  was  deputed  to 
submit  the  cause  to  His  Holiness,  and  Grassi  is  in 
admiration  at  the  sublime  obedience  of  Pignatelli  in 
doing  what  he  was  told;  but  it  is  hard  to  imagine  why 
he  should  be  so  edified.  The  Professed  of  the  Society 
make  a  special  and  solemn  vow  of  obedience  to  the 


912  The  Jesuits 

Pope  and  admit  his  decision  without  question.  Even 
when  the  Pope  suppressed  the  entire  Society  they 
defended  his  action.  Where  is  there  anything  heroic 
in  being  merely  the  messenger  between  the  General 
and  the  Pope?  In  any  case  Kohlmann's  admission  to 
the  Society  was  with  the  full  approval  of  both  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  and  the  General,  even  if  he  had  been 
a  Capuchin,  which  is  by  no  means  certain. 

We  are  also  informed  that  the  authorities  in  Rome 
were  surprised  that  Kohlmann  was  admitted  to  his 
last  vows  before  the  customary  ten  years  had  elapsed, 
but  there  are  many  such  instances  in  the  history  of 
the  Society,  and  the  General  in  referring  to  it  may  have 
been  merely  asking  for  information.  Finally  with 
regard  to  the  alleged  worry  about  Kohlmann's  appoint- 
ment as  Vicar  General  of  New  York;  it  suffices  to  say 
that  the  office  is  of  its  nature  temporary,  and  cannot 
well  be  classified  as  a  prelacy;  especially  as  there  was 
only  one  permanent  church  structure  in  the  entire 
episcopal  territory  that  stretched  between  the  Hudson 
River  and  Lake  Erie,  and  the  clergy  was  largely  made 
up  of  transients. 

At  the  time  that  Father  Kohlmann  was  mentioned 
for  the  See  of  New  York,  Father  Peter  Kenny  was 
proposed  for  that  of  Dromore  in  Ireland.  Foley  in 
his  "  Chronological  Catalogue  of  the  Irish  Province 
S-  J-  "  gives  a  brief  account  of  this  very  distinguished 
man,  who  like  Kohlmann  was  for  some  time  identified 
with  the  Church  in  the  United  States. 

He  was  born  in  Dublin,  July  7,  1779,  and  entered 
the  Society  at  Hodder,  Stonyhurst,  September  20,  1804. 
He  died  in  the  Gesu  at  Rome,  November  19,  1841. 
WTien  a  boy  he  attracted  the  notice  of  Father  Thomas 
Betagh,  the  last  of  the  Irish  Jesuits  of  the  old  Society, 
who  was  then  Vicar  General  of  Dublin,  and  was  sent 
to  Carlow  College.  Even  in  early  youth  he  was 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         913 

remarkable  for  his  extraordinary  eloquence.  When 
a  novice  he  was  told  to  come  down  from  the  pulpit, 
his  fellow-novices  being  so  spell-bound  that  they 
refused  to  eat.  At  Stonyhurst,  he  wrote  a  work  in 
mathematics  and  physics.  In  1811  he  was  Vice- 
President  of  Maynooth  College.  He  purchased  Clon- 
gowes  Wood  in  1814,  and  in  1819  was  sent  as  visitor 
to  the  Jesuit  houses  of  Maryland.  He  was  made 
vice-provincial  of  Ireland  in  1829,  and  again  came  to 
America  in  1830,  where  he  remained  for  three  years 
and  then  installed  Father  McSherry  as  the  first  pro- 
vincial of  the  American  province.  His  retreats  in 
Ireland  are  still  enthusiastically  referred  to  and  quoted. 
In  1809  when  he  was  finishing  his  theology  in  Palermo, 
Father  Angiolini  wrote  to  Father  Plowden  "  Father 
Kenny  is  head  and  shoulders  over  every  one.  He  has 
genius,  health,  zeal,  energy,  success  in  action  and 
prudence  to  a  remarkable  degree.  May  God  keep 
him  for  the  glory  and  increase  of  the  Irish  Missions!  " 
God  did  so  and  the  missions  of  America  also  profited 
by  his  genius  and  virtue. 

Later  on,  Father  Van  de  Velde  was  made  Bishop  of 
Chicago,  but  he  continually  petitioned  Rome  to  be 
allowed  to  return  to  the  Society;  while  Father  Midge 
after  twenty-four  years  of  the  episcopate  and  without 
waiting  to  celebrate  his  silver  jubilee  became  a  Jesuit 
again  and  spent  his  last  days  at  Woodstock,  where  he 
met  Father  Michael  O'Connor,  who  had  resigned  the 
See  of  Pittsburg  in  order  to  assume  the  habit  of  St. 
Ignatius.  His  brother  before  being  made  Bishop  of 
Omaha  asked  to  enter  the  Society  but  he  was  told 
"  Be  a  bishop  first  like  your  brother  and  afterwards  a 
Jesuit."  One  of  the  most  distinguished  Jesuits  of 
New  York,  Father  Larkin,  had  to  flee  the  country  to 
avoid  being  made  Bishop  of  Toronto,  and  Father 
William  Duncan  of  Boston  would  have  occupied 
58 


914  The  Jesuits 

the  See  of  Savannah  had  not  he  entered  the 
Society. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  cardinalate.  An  unu- 
sually large  number  of  Jesuits  have  been  raised  to  that 
dignity  in  the  hundred  years  of  the  new  Society,  in 
spite  of  the  oath  they  have  taken  to  do  all  in  their 
power  to  prevent  it,  an  oath  which  they  have  all  most 
faithfully  kept,  yielding  only  because  they  were  bidden 
to  do  so  under  pain  of  sin. 

Camillo  Mazzella  entered  the  Society  in  1857,  and 
when  the  scholasticate  at  Woodstock  in  Maryland  was 
opened,  he  was  made  prefect  of  studies.  He  was 
called  to  Rome  in  1878  to  take  the  place  of  Franzelin 
in  the  Gregorian  University.  In  1886  he  was  created 
Cardinal  deacon  and  ten  years  later  Cardinal  priest, 
while  in  1897  he  was  appointed  Cardinal  bishop  of 
Palestrina.  Camillo  Tarquini  was  made  cardinal  be- 
cause of  his  prominence  as  a  canonist;  Andreas 
Steinhuber's  learning  and  his  great  labors  as  Vatican 
librarian  won  for  him  the  honor  of  the  purple,  while 
Louis  Billot  after  teaching  dogmatic  theology  at  Angers 
and  the  Gregorian  University  was  named  Cardinal 
deacon  of  Santa  Maria  in  Via  Lata  on  November  27, 
1911.  But  much  greater  consolation  has  been  afforded 
to  the  new  Society  by  the  canonization  of  its  saints 
than  by  the  choice  of  its  members  for  the  cardinalate. 
One  is  a  recognition  of  the  intellectual  ability  and 
personal  virtue ;  the  other  is  an  official,  though  indirect, 
approval  of  the  Institute. 

At  the  very  time  that  Pombal,  Choiseul  and  Charles 
III  were  crushing  the  Society  in  their  respective 
countries,  Rome  as  if  in  condemnation  of  the  act  was 
jubilant  with  delight  over  the  heroic  virtue  of  the 
Italian  Jesuit,  Francis  Hieronymo;  and  people  were 
asking  each  other  how  a  Society  could  be  bad  when  it 


Pontiffs  and  the  Society         915 

produced  such  a  saint?  In  an  issue  of  the  "  Gazette  " 
of  distant  Quebec  at  that  time  we  find  a  bewildered 
Protestant  Englishman  who  was  the  journal's  corre- 
spondent at  Rome  asking  himself  that  question.  The 
political  troubles  of  the  period  caused  the  proceedings 
of  the  canonization  to  be  suspended,  but  Gregory  XVI, 
who  succeeded  Leo  XII,  canonized  Francis  on  the  Feast 
of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  1839.  Pius  IX  beatified 
Canisius,  Bobola,  Faber,  de  Britto  and  Berchmans, 
with  Peter  Claver,  the  apostle  of  the  negroes,  and  the 
lay-brother  Alphonso  Rodriguez,  besides  placing  the 
crown  of  martyrdom  on  the  throng  of  martyrs  in 
Japan,  Europeans  and  natives  alike,  as  well  as  upon 
Azevedo  and  his  thirty-nine  Portuguese  associates 
who  were  slaughtered  at  sea  near  the  Azores. 

Leo  XIII  beatified  Antonio  Baldinucc'i  and  Rudolph 
Aquaviva  with  his  fellow- Jesuits  who  were  put  to 
death  at  Salsette  in  Hindostan,  besides  raising  to  the 
honors  of  sainthood  Peter  Claver  and  Alphonso 
Rodriguez,  and  also  placing  John  Berchmans  in  the 
same  category,  thus  re-affirming  the  sanctity  of  the 
rules  of  the  Society,  for  the  realization  of  which  the 
holy  youth  had  already  been  beatified.  The  canon- 
ization of  Alphonso  is  also  notable  because  it  was 
by  Leo  XII,  whose  name  Leo  XIII  had  adopted,  that 
the  humble  porter  of  Minorca  was  raised  to  the  first 
honors  of  the  altar.  Finally,  Pius  X  showed  his  love 
for  the  Society  and  his  approval  of  the  rule  by  beatifying 
the  three  martyrs  of  Hungary  whom  scarcely  anybody 
had  ever  heard  of  before:  Mark  Crisin,  Stephen  Pon- 
gracz  and  Melchior  Grodecz.  There  is  also  under 
consideration  the  beatification  of  the  great  American 
apostles  Jogues,  Brebeuf,  Lalemant,  Daniel,  Chabanel, 
Gamier,  Goupil  and  Lalande,  five  of  whom  died  for 
the  Faith  in  Canada,  and  three  in  what  is  now  the 
State  of  New  York. 


916  The  Jesuits 

The  new  Society  has  not  failed  to  add  new  names 
to  this  catalogue  of  honor  of  prospective  saints.  They 
are  Joseph  Pignatelli,  who  died  iniSn;  Father  Joseph 
de  Cloriviere,  1820;  Paul  Cappelari,  1857;  and  Paul 
Ginhac,  1895.  Five  Jesuits  were  put  to  death  at  Paris 
in  1871  by  the  Communards:  namely  Pierre  Olivaint, 
Anatole  de  Bengy,  Alexis  Clerc,  Leon  Ducoudray,  and 
Jean  Caubert. 

Between  1822  and  1902,  forty-four  others  have 
given  glory  to  the  Society  either  by  the  heroic  sanctity 
of  their  lives,  or  by  shedding  their  blood  for  the  Faith. 
Besides  these,  there  are  thirty-five  Jesuits  who  have 
been  put  to  death  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  They 
are:  four  Italians,  Ferdinando  Bonacini  and  Luigi 
Massa  in  1860;  Genaio  Pastore  in  1887  and  Emilio 
Moscoso  in  1897;  four  Germans:  Anthony  Terorde 
in  1880;  Stephen  Czimmerman,  Joseph  Platzer  and 
Clemens  Wigger  who  were  killed  by  the  Caffirs  in 
1895-6.  The  French  can  boast  of  12  namely: 
Bishop  Planchet  in  1859;  Edouard  Billotet;  Elie 
Joun£s,  Habib  Maksoud,  and  Alphonse  Habeisch  who 
were  killed  in  Syria  in  1860;  Martin  Brutail  in  1883; 
Gaston  de  Batz  in  1883;  Modeste  Andlauer,  Leon 
Mangin,  Remi  Isore,  and  Paul  Denn,  who  met  their 
death  in  the  Boxer  Uprising  in  1900;  Leon  Muller  was 
killed  by  the  Boxers  two  years  later.  Sixteen  Spaniards 
were  put  to  death:  Casto  Hernandez,  Juan  Sauri, 
Juan  Artigas,  Jose  Fernandez,  Juan  Elola,  Jose  Urri- 
etta,  Domingo  Barreau,  Jose  Gamier,  Jos6  Sancho, 
Pedro  Demont,  Firmin  Barba,  Martin  Buxons,  Eman- 
uel  Ostolozza,  Juan  Ruedas,  Vincente  Gogorza,  who 
were  massacred  in  Madrid  in  1834. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

CONCLUSION 

Successive  Generals  in  the  Restored  Society  —  Present  Membership, 
Missions  and  Provinces. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  first  General  of  the  Society  elected 
after  the  Restoration  was  Father  Fortis,  who  died  on 
January  27,  1829.  On  June  29  of  that  year  Father 
John  Roothaan  was  chosen  as  his  successor  on  the 
fourth  ballot.  As  in  the  previous  election,  Father  Ro- 
zaven  was  the  choice  of  many  of  the  delegates. 

John  Philip  Roothaan,  the  twenty -first  General  of 
the  Society,  was  born  at  Amsterdam  on  November  23, 
1785,  and  finished  his  classical  studies  in  the  Atheneum 
Illustre  under  the  famous  Jakob  van  Lennep.  When 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  enter  the  Society  in  White 
Russia  in  1804,  his  distinguished  teacher,  though  a 
Protestant,  gave  him  the  following  letter  of  introduc- 
tion: "  I  am  fully  aware  of  how  in  former  times  the 
Society  distinguished  itself  in  every  branch  of 
knowledge.  Its  splendid  services  in  that  respect 
can  never  be  forgotten,  and  I  am,  therefore,  especially 
pleased  to  recommend  this  young  man  whose  merit 
I  most  highly  appreciate.  May  he  be  enriched  with 
all  your  science  and  your  virtues,  and  I  trust  to  see 
him  again  in  possession  of  those  treasures  which  he 
has  gone  so  far  to  seek." 

The  praise  was  well  merited,  for,  even  at  that  early 
period  of  his  life,  Roothaan  had  mastered  French, 
Polish,  Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew.  He  studied  phil- 
osophy at  Polotsk,  and  in  1812  was  ordained  priest. 
After  the  expulsion  he  went  to  Switzerland  in  1820, 
and  taught  rhetoric  there  for  three  years.  As  socius 
to  the  provincial,  he  made  the  tour  of  all  the  Jesuit 

[917] 


918  The  Jesuits 

houses  in  Germany,  Switzerland,  Belgium  and  Hol- 
land three  times,  and  afterwards  was  appointed  rector 
of  the  new  college  in  Turin.  As  General,  his  chief 
care  was  to  strengthen  the  internal  life  of  the  Society. 
His  first  eleven  encyclicals  have  that  object  in  view. 
His  edition  of  the  "  Exercises  "  is  a  classic.  In  1832  he 
published  the  "  Revised  Order  of  Studies,"  adapting 
the  Ratio  to  the  needs  of  the  times;  and  he  increased 
the  activities  of  the  Society  in  the  mission  fields. 
But  his  long  term  of  office  was  one  uninterrupted 
series  of  trials.  His  enforced  visit  to  the  greater 
number  of  the  houses  has  already  been  told  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter. 

Among  the  many  things  for  which  the  Society  is 
profoundly  grateful  to  Father  Roothaan  is  the  very 
remarkable  publication  of  the  "  Exercises  of  St. 
Ignatius."  According  to  Astrain,  "  the  autograph 
was  in  rough  and  labored  Castilian,"  for  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  saintly  author  was  a  Basque. 
"  The  text,"  he  tells  us,  "  arrests  the  attention,"  not 
by  its  elegance  but,  "  by  the  energetic  precision  and 
brevity  with  which  certain  thoughts  are  expressed. 
The  autograph  itself  no  longer  exists.  What  goes  by 
that  name  is  only  a  quarto  copy  made  by  some  secretary, 
but  containing  corrections  in  the  author's  handwriting. 
It  has  been  reproduced  by  photography.  Two  Latin 
translations  were  made  of  it  during  the  lifetime  of 
St.  Ignatius.  There  remain  now,  first  the  wrsio 
antiqua  or  ancient  Latin  translation,  which  is  a  literal 
version,  probably  by  the  saint  himself;  second,  a  free 
translation  by  Father  Frusius,  more  elegant  and  more 
in  accordance  with  the  style  of  the  period.  It  is 
commonly  called  the  'Vulgate.'  The  versio  antiqua 
bears  the  date,  Rome,  July  9,  1541.  The  'Vulgate' 
is  later  than  1541  but  earlier  than  1548,  when  the  two 
versions  were  presented  to  Paul  III  for  approval.  He 


Conclusion  919 

appointed  three  examiners,  who  warmly  praised  both 
versions,  but  the  Vulgate  was  the  only  one  printed. 
It  was  published  in  Rome  on  September  n,  1548,  and 
was  called  the  editio  princeps. 

"  Besides  these  two  translations,  there  are  two 
others.  One  is  the  still  unpublished  text  left  by  Blessed 
Peter  Faber  to  the  Carthusians  of  Cologne  before 
1546.  It  holds  a  middle  place  between  the  literal 
document  and  the  Vulgate.  The  second  was  made  by 
Father  Roothaan,  who,  on  account  of  the  differences 
between  the  Vulgate  and  the  Spanish  autograph, 
wished  to  translate  the  Exercises  into  Latin  as  accu- 
rately as  possible,  at  the  same  time  making  use  of  the 
versio  antiqua.  His  intention  was  not  to  supplant  the 
Vulgate,  and  on  that  account  he  published  the  work 
of  Frusius  and  his  own  in  parallel  columns  (1835)." 

Father  Roothaan  was  succeeded  as  General  by 
Father  Beckx,  who  was  born  in  1795  at  Sichem,  near 
Diest,  the  town  that  glories  in  being  the  birthplace  of 
St.  John  Berchmans.  He  entered  the  Society  at 
Hildesheim  in  1819,  after  having  been  a  secular  priest 
for  eight  months.  In  1825  he  was  appointed  chaplain 
of  the  Duke  of  Anhalt-Kothen,  who  had  become  a 
Catholic  after  visiting  the  home  of  one  of  his  Catholic 
friends  in  France.  Anhalt-Kothen  is  in  Prussian  Sax-, 
ony,  and  there  were  only  twenty  Catholics  in  the  entire^ 
duchy  when  Beckx  arrived  there.  Before  four  year^, 
had  passed,  the  number  had  grown  to  two  hundre^ 
In  1830  he  was  sent  to  Vienna  and  for  a  time  was 

*^ 

only  Jesuit  in  that  city.     In  1852  he  was  made 
cial  of  Austria  and  had  the  happiness  of  leading 
his  brethren  to  the  beloved  Innsbruck  as  well 
Lenz  and   Lemberg.     In  the  following  year 
elected  General,  and  occupied  the  post  for 
years.     He  used  to  say  that  at  the  time  he 
into  office  the  province  of  Portugal  consisted 


920  The  Jesuits 

Jesuit  and  a  half.  The  one  was  in  hiding  in  Lisbon, 
and  the  "  half  "  was  a  novice  in  Turin.  Even  now 
they  number  only  three  hundred.  All  the  houses 
have  been  seized  by  the  Republican  government  and 
the  Fathers,  scholastics  and  brothers  expelled  from 
their  native  land  in  the  usual  brutal  fashion. 

During  Father  Beckx's  term  of  office  eighty  Jesuits 
were  raised  to  the  honors  of  the  altar.  All  but  three 
of  them  were  martyrs.  In  spite  of  this  the  Society 
was  expelled  from  Italy  in  1860;  from  Spain  in  1868; 
and  from  Germany  in  1873,  at  which  time  the  General 
and  the  assistants  left  Rome,  where,  after  the  Pied- 
montese  occupation,  it  was  no  longer  safe  to  live. 
They  took  up  their  abode  at  Fiesole  and  there  the 
curia,  as  it  is  called,  remained  until' after  the  death 
of  Father  Beckx's  successor.  In  1883  the  age  and 
infirmities  of  the  General  made  the  election  of  a  vicar 
peremptory,  and  Father  Anderledy  was  chosen.  Father 
Beckx  died  at  the  age  of  ninety-two,  and  one  who  saw 
him  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life  thus  writes  of  him : 
"  This  holy  old  man  who  has  attained  the  age  of  nearly 
ninety  years,  so  modest,  so  humble,  so  prudent,  always 
the  same;  always  amiable,  with  the  glory  of  thirty 
years'  government  and  of  interior  martyrdom  inflicted 
upon  him  by  the  mishaps  of  the  Society,  was  a  spectacle 
to  fill  one  with  admiration.  His  angelic  mien  delighted 
me.  With  how  great  charity  he  received  me  in  his 
room!  With  what  deference!  His  poor  cassock  was 
patched.  He  is  as  punctual  at  the  exercises  as  the 
most  vigorous.  In  spite  of  his  old  age  he  observes 
all  the  laws  of  fasting  and  abstinence.  At  a  quarter 
past  five  he  commences  his  Mass  and  spends  con- 
siderable time  kneeling  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 
God  grant  us  many  imitators  of  his  virtues." 

Father  Anderledy  was  a  Swiss.  He  was  born  in  the 
canton  of  Valais  in  1819,  and  entered  the  Society  at 


Conclusion  921 

Brieg  in  1838.  He  was  sent  to  Rome  for  his  theological 
studies  and  it  is  reported  that  he  was  such  a  pertinacious 
disputant  that  old  Father  Perrone  said  to  him  one 
day:  "Young  man,  cease  or  I  shall  get  angry."  In 
the  disturbances  of  1847,  ne  was  on  his  Wa7  to  Switzer- 
land when  he  was  halted  by  a  squad  of  furious  soldiers 
who  asked  him  "  Are  you  a  Jesuit?"  "  What  do  you 
mean  by  a  Jesuit?"  he  asked.  When  the  conventional 
answer  was  given,  he  angrily  demanded  "  Do  you 
take  me  for  a  scoundrel?"  and  they  let  him  pass. 
In  1848  he  was  sent  to  America  and  was  ordained  at 
St.  Louis  by  Archbishop  Kenrick  and  then  put  in 
charge  of  a  German  parish  at  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin, 
a  place  teeming  with  memories  of  the  old  Jesuit 
missionaries:  Marquette,  Allouez  and  others.  On  his 
return  to  Europe,  he  went  through  Germany  preaching 
missions  and  winning  a  reputation  as  a  great  orator, 
although  working  in  conjunction  with  the  famous 
Father  Roh.  He  was  made  rector  of  the  College  of 
Cologne  and,  subsequently,  professor  at  the  scholasti- 
cate  of  Maria- Laach.  In  1870  he  was  called  to  Rome 
to  be  made  German  assistant,  and  in  1883  he  was 
elected  vicar  to  Father  Beckx  with  the  right  of  suc- 
cession. He  was  particularly  zealous  as  General  in 
promoting  the  study  of  theology  and  philosophy,  and 
in  training  men  in  the  physical  sciences.  During  his 
administration,  the  Society  increased  from  11,840 
members  to  13,275,  but  he  was  very  much  adverse 
to  the  establishment  of  new  provinces.  The  creation 
of  Canada  as  an  independent  mission  was  all  he  would 
grant  in  that  direction.  He  died  at  Fiesole  on  18 
January,  1892. 

Luis  Martin  Garcia,  or,  as  he  is  commonly  called, 
Father  Martin,  who  succeeded  Father  Anderledy,  was 
the  fifth  Spanish  General  of  the  Society.  He  was 
born  on  19  August,  1846,  at  Melgar  de  Fermamental, 


922  The  Jesuits 

a  small  town  about  twenty-five  miles  north-west  of 
Burgos,  and  was  already  a  seminarian  in  his  second 
year  of  theology  when  he  began  to  think  of  becoming 
a  religious.  To  be  a  Jesuit,  however,  was  at  first  as 
abhorrent  to  him  as  becoming  a  Saracen.  But  his 
ideas  on  that  point  began  to  clarify  when  he  heard  his 
very  distinguished  professor  Don  Manuel  Gonzalez 
Peiia,  who  had  been  a  theologian  in  the  Vatican  Council, 
discourse  enthusiastically  and  on  every  occasion, 
about  the  glories  of  Suarez,  Toletus,  Petavius,  Bellar- 
mine  and  the  other  great  lights  of  the  Society.  The 
impression  was  heightened  by  some  letters  from  the 
Philippine  Jesuits  which  had  fallen  into  his  hands,  and 
Cretineau-Joly's  history  also  contributed  to  his  change 
of  views.  A  conversation  with  the  Jesuit  superior  of 
the  residence  at  Burgos,  and  the  departure  of  a  brilliant 
fellow-student  for  the  novitiate,  completed  the  dis- 
illusionment and  he  was  admitted  at  Loyola  on  13 
October,  1864. 

In  1870,  when  the  Society  was  expelled  from  Spain, 
he  went  with  the  other  scholastics  to  Vals  in  France, 
and  later  to  Poyanne.  In  the  latter  place  he  remained 
as  minister  and  professor  of  dogmatic  theology  until 
1880,  and  when  the  religious  were  expelled  from  France 
he  returned  to  Spain  and  was  made  superior  of  the 
scholasticate  which  had  been  opened  in  Salamanca. 
He  was  charged  also  with  the  duty  of  teaching  theology 
and  Hebrew.  In  1 886  he  opened  the  house  of  studies  at 
Bilbao,  and  in  the  same  year  he  was  made  provincial 
of  Castile.  Previous  to  that  he  had  been  the 
editor  of  "The  Messenger  of  the  Sacred  Heart"  for 
a  year.  In  1891  he  was  summoned  to  Rome  by  Father 
Anderledy,  to  analyze  and  summarize  the  reports  sent 
in  by  all  the  provinces  on  the  proposed  quinquennium 
of  theology  and  a  new  arrangement  of  studies.  On  the 
death  of  Father  Anderledy  he  was  made  Vicar  General. 


Conclusion  923 

He  was  then  only  forty-five  years  of  age.  His  appoint- 
ment coincided  with  the  outbreak  of  an  epidemic  of 
influenza  of  which  he  was  very  near  being  a  victim. 
Singularly  enough,  it  was  this  same  disease  that 
carried  him  off  thirteen  years  later,  supervening  as 
it  did  on  the  terrible  sarcoma  from  which  he  had  long 
been  suffering. 

As  Vicar  he  convoked  the  general  congregation, 
assigning  September  23  as  the  date  and  choosing 
Loyola  in  Spain  as  the  place  of  meeting.  It  was  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Society  that  the  con- 
vention took  place  outside  of  Rome,  with  the  exception 
of  the  meetings  in  Russia  during  the  Suppression. 
The  reason  for  the  decision  was  that  the  Pope  let  it 
be  known  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  remain  in 
session  in  Rome  for  any  considerable  period,  though  he 
suggested  that  they  might  elect  the  General  in  Rome 
and  then  continue  the  congregation  elsewhere.  After 
long  deliberation  by  the  assistants,  it  was  determined 
not  to  separate  the  election  from  the  other  proceedings. 
As  for  the  place  of  meeting,  Loyola  was  chosen,  though 
Tronchiennes  in  Belgium  had  been  offered.  The  choice 
of  Spain  was  determined  by  the  vote  of  the  assistant 
who  had  no  Spanish  affiliations.  Father  Martin 
was  elected  general  on  2  October,  and  the  sessions 
continued  until  5  December. 

In  this  congregation,  Father  Martin  called  the 
attention  of  the  delegates  to  the  fact  that  no  Jesuit 
had  ever  addressed  himself  to  the  task  of  writing  the 
complete  history  of  the  Order;  an  abstention,  it  might 
be  urged,  which  ought  to  acquit  them  of  the  accusation 
of  unduly  praising  the  Society.  Father  Aquaviva 
had  indeed  commissioned  Orlandini  to  begin  the  work, 
but  the  distinguished  writer  not  only  got  no  further 
then  the  Generalate  of  St.  Ignatius  but  did  not  even 
publish  his  book.  Saechini  his  continuator  had  to  see 


924  The  Jesuits 

to  the  publication;  his  own  contributions  appeared  in 
1615  and  1621.  Jouvancy  was  then  called  to  Rome 
to  finish  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  section  which  had 
by  that  time  appeared,  but  he  did  not  advance  beyond 
the  year  1616.  He  had  bad  luck  with  it  even  in  that 
small  space,  for  certain  opinions  appeared  in  it  about 
the  rights  of  sovereigns  which  were  not  acceptable 
to  the  Bourbon  kings,  and  the  book  was  forbidden  in 
France  by  decrees  of  Parliament,  dated  25  February 
and  25  March,  1715.  Finally,  Cordara,  an  Italian, 
assumed  the  task  and  wrote  two  volumes,  which 
though  exquisitely  done  embraced  not  more  than 
seventeen  years  of  Father  Vitelleschi's  generalate 
(1616-33),  and  only  one  volume  was  published  then. 
More  than  one  hundred  years  elapsed  before  the  second 
appeared.  It  was  edited  by  Raggazzini  in  1859. 

It  was  high  time,  Father  Martin  declared,  that 
something  should  be  done  to  remedy  this  condition 
of  affairs  and  that  a  history  of  the  Society  should  be 
written  on  a  scale  commensurate  with  the  greatness 
of  the  subject,  and  in  keeping  with  the  methods  which 
modern  requirements  look  for  in  historical  writing. 
As  the  undertaking  in  the  way  it  was  conceived  would 
have  been  too  much  for  any  one  man,  a  literary  syndi- 
cate was  established  in  which  Father  Hughes  was 
assigned  to  write  the  history  of  the  Society's  work  in 
English-speaking  America,  Father  Astrain  that  of 
the  Spanish  assistancy,  Father  Venturi  the  Italian, 
Father  Fouqueray  the  French,  Father  Duhr  and  Father 
Kroess  the  German.  This  work  is  now  in  progress. 
Those  who  are  engaged  on  it  are  men  of  unim- 
peachable integrity.  Meantime  an  immense  num- 
ber of  hitherto  unpublished  documents  are  being 
put  in  the  hands  of  the  writers.  As  many  as  fifty 
bulky  volumes  known  as  the  "  Monutnenta  historica 
Societatis  Jesu,"  consisting  of  the  chronicles  of  the 


Conclusion  925 

houses  and  provinces,  the  intimate  correspondence 
of  many  of  the  great  men  of  the  Society,  such  as 
Ignatius,  Lainez,  Borgia  etc.,  have  been  printed, 
and  sent  broadcast  through  all  the  provinces. 
Nor  is  this  mass  of  material  jealously  guarded  by  the 
Jesuits  themselves.  It  is  available  to  any  sincere 
investigator. 

As  the  Congregation  had  expressed  the  desire  that 
the  residence  of  the  General  and  his  assistants  at 
Fiesole  be  closed,  and  that  if  the  political  troubles 
would  permit  it  he  should  return  to  Rome,  Father 
Martin,  after  consulting  with  the  Pope,  who  granted 
the  permission  with  some  hesitation,  established 
himself  at  the  Collegium  Germanicum  on  20  January, 
1895.  The  public  excitement  that  was  apprehended 
did  not  occur.  The  papers  merely  chronicled  the  fact 
but  made  no  ado  about  it  whatever.  Father  Martin 
had  much  to  console  him,  during  his  administration, 
as,  for  instance,  the  beatification  of  several  members 
of  the  Society,  but  he  had  also  many  sorrows  such  as 
the  closing  of  all  the  houses  in  France  by  the  Waldeck- 
Rousseau  government  and  the  deplorable  defections 
of  some  Jesuits  in  connection  with  the  Modernist 
movement. 

In  1905  the  first  symptoms  of  the  disease  that  was 
to  carry  him  off  in  a  short  time  declared  themselves. 
In  that  year,  four  cancerous  swellings  developed  in 
his  right  arm.  He  had  submitted  to  the  painful 
cutting  of  two  of  them  without  the  aid  of  anesthetics. 
The  operation  lasted  two  hours  and  a  half,  and  he 
maintained  his  consciousness  throughout.  A  little 
later,  the  other  swellings  showed  signs  of  gangrene 
and  the  amputation  of  the  arm  was  decided  upon, 
but  in  this  instance  he  submitted  to  chloroform.  He 
rallied  after  the  operation  and  in  spite  of  his  crippled 
condition  was  permitted  by  the  Pope  to  say  Mass. 


926  The  Jesuits 

His  strength  had  left  him,  however,  and  on  15  February, 
1906  he  was  attacked  by  influenza  and  he  died  on 
1 8  April  at  the  age  of  sixty.  At  his  death  the  Society 
numbered  15,515  members. 

Father  Martin's  successor  was  Francis  Xavier 
Wernz  who  was  born  in  Wurtemberg  in  1842.  When 
the  Society  was  expelled  from  Germany  in  1872,  he 
went  to  Ditton  Hall  in  England  to  complete  his  studies, 
after  having  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  year  in  the 
army  ambulance-corps,  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
War  of  1870.  He  taught  canon  law  for  several  years 
at  Ditton  Hall,  and  in  1882  was  a  professor  at  St. 
Beuno's  in  Wales.  From  there  he  was  transferred  to 
the  Gregorian  University  in  Rome,  where  he  lectured 
from  1883  to  1906.  In  September  of  the  latter  year, 
he  was  elected  General,  in  which  post  he  lived  only 
eight  years.  Previous  to  his  election,  he  had  issued 
four  volumes  of  his  great  work  on  canon  law.  Two 
others  were  published  later,  one  of  them  after  his  death. 
The  end  of  his  labors  came  on  19  August,  1914.  He 
was  then  in  his  seventy-second  year  and  had  passed 
fifty-seven  years  in  the  Society.  It  was  during  this 
generalate  that  the  provinces  of  Canada,  New  Orleans, 
Mexico,  California  and  Hungary  were  erected. 

Father  Wladimir  Ledochowski  was  elected  to  the 
vacant  post  on  n  February,  1915.  He  was  then  only 
forty-nine  years  of  age.  He  entered  the  Society  in 
1889,  and  in  1902,  shortly  after  his  ordination,  was 
made  provincial  of  Galicia,  while  in  1906  he  was 
elected  as  assistant  to  Father  Wernz.  He  is  the 
nephew  of  the  famous  Cardinal  Ledochowski,  whom 
Bismarck  imprisoned  for  his  courageous  championship 
of  the  rights  of  Poland. 

The  new  Society  like  the  old  has  not  failed  to  produce 
saints  and  at  the  present  moment  the  lives  of  a  very 
considerable  number  of  those  who  have  lived  and 


Conclusion  927 

labored  in  the  century  that  has  elapsed  since  the 
restoration  are  being  considered  by  the  Church  as 
possible  candidates  for  canonization. 

The  number  of  Jesuits  who  were  under  the  colors  as 
soldiers,  chaplains  or  stretcher  bearers  or  volunteers 
in  the  World  War  of  1914-1918  ran  up  to  2014, —  a 
very  great  drain  on  the  Society  as  a  whole,  which  in 
1918  had  only  17,205  names  on  its  rolls,  among  whom 
were  very  many  incapacitated  either  by  age  or  youth 
or  ailment  for  any  active  work.  Of  the  2014  Belgium 
furnished  165,  Austria  82,  France  855,  Germany  376, 
Italy  369,  England  83,  Ireland  30,  Canada  4  and  the 
United  States  50.  Of  the  83  English  Jesuits  serving  as 
chaplains,  5  died  while  in  the  service,  2  won  the 
Distinguished  Service  Order,  13  the  Military  Cross,  3 
the  Order  of  the  British  Empire,  2 1  were  mentioned  in 
despatches,  2  were  mentioned  for  valuable  services 
and  4  received  foreign  decorations,  —  a  total  of  45 
distinctions. 

France  calls  for  special  notice  in  this  matter.  From 
the  four  French  provinces  of  the  Society  855  Jesuits 
were  mobilized.  Of  these  107  were  officers,  3  com- 
mandants, i  lieutenant-commander,  13  captains,  4  naval 
lieutenants,  22  lieutenants,  50  second-lieutenants,  i 
naval  ensign,  and  5  officers  in  the  health  services. 
The  loss  in  dead  was  165  Jesuits,  of  whom  28  were 
chaplains,  30  officers,  36  sub-officers,  17  corporals  and 
54  privates.  The  number  of  distinctions  won  is 
almost  incredible.  The  decoration  of  the  Legion 
d'honneur  was  conferred  on  68,  the  Medaille  militaire 
on  48,  the  Medaille  des  Epidemics  on  4,  the  Croix  de 
guerre  on  320,  the  Moroccan  or  Tunisian  medal  on  3, 
while  595  were  mentioned  in  despatches,  and  18 
foreign  decorations  were  received:  in  all  1,056  dis- 
tinctions were  won  by  the  855  Jesuits  in  the  French 
army  and  navy  (The  Jesuit  Directory,  1921).  "  What 


928  The  Jesuits 

party  or  group  or  club  or  lodge,"  says  a  sometime 
unfriendly  paper,  the  "  Italia,"  "  can  claim  a  similar 
distinction?"  Another  of  their  distinctions  is  that 
Foch,  de  Castelnau,  Fayolle,  Guynemer  and  many 
more  French  heroes  were  trained  in  Jesuit  schools. 
Finally,  the  French  Jesuits  performed  this  marvellous 
service  to  their  country  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
government  of  that  country  had  closed  and  confiscated 
every  one  of  their  churches  and  colleges  from  one 
end  of  France  to  the  other,  and  by  so  doing  had  exiled 
these  loyal  subjects  from  their  native  land.  To  add 
to  the  outrage,  they  were  summoned  back  when  the 
war  began,  and  not  one  of  them  failed  to  respond 
immediately,  returning  from  distant  missions  among 
savages  at  the  ends  of  the  earth  or  from  civilized 
countries  that  were  more  hospitable  to  them  than  their 
own  for  the  defense  of  which  they  willingly  offered 
their  lives.  Now,  when  the  war  is  over,  they  have 
no  home  to  go  to. 

In  1912,  two  years  before  the  War,  the  Society  had 
on  its  rolls  16,545  members.  At  the  beginning  of 
1920  it  had  17,250  members:  8,454  priests,  4,819 
scholastics,  3,977  lay-brothers.  The  Society  is  divided 
into  what  are  called  assistancies.  The  Italian  assis- 
tancy,  which  is  composed  of  the  provinces  of  Rome, 
Naples,  Sicily,  Turin  and  Venice,  numbers  in  all  1,415 
members.  The  frequent  dispersions  and  confisca- 
tions to  which  this  section  has  been  subjected  account 
for  the  small  number.  Thus,  the  Roman  province 
has  only  354,  and  Sicily  has  but  223.  In  the  assistancy 
there  are  748  priests,  but  the  prospects  of  the  increase 
of  this  category  is  the  reverse  of  encouraging,  for  there 
are  only  308  scholastics.  The  lay-brothers  number 
359.  What  has  acted  as  a  deterrent  in  Italy  has, 
paradoxically,  acted  in  a  contrary  sense  in  the  German 
assistancy.  Several  of  these  provinces  have  been  dis- 


Conclusion  929 

persed,  but  they  aggregate  as  many  as  4,329  members. 
Belgium  is  a  strong  factor  in  this  large  number,  for 
it  totals  1,279,  of  whom  672  are  priests;  the  Germans, 
who  have  no  establishment  in  their  own  country, 
but  are  scattered  over  the  earth,  have  a  membership 
of  1,210,  of  whqm  664  are  in  Holy  Orders.  Austria 
has  356  on  her  register,  Poland  464,  Czecho-Slovakia 
114,  Jugoslavia  113,  Hungary  212,  while  Holland  has 
as  many  as  581. 

The  Waldeck- Rousseau  Associations  Law  of  1901 
not  only  confiscated  every  Jesuit  establishment  in 
France  but  denied  the  Society  the  right  even  to  possess 
property.  Nevertheless,  unlike  Italy  the  provinces  of 
Champagne,  France,  Lyons  and  Toulouse  show  2,758 
names  in  their  catalogues  for  1920.  They  have  1,647 
priests  with  583  scholastics  to  draw  on.  The  Spaniards 
are  grouped  in  the  provinces  of  Aragon,  Castile,  Mexico, 
and  Toledo,  to  which  has  been  added  the  Province  of 
Portugal.  This  combination  has  1,760  to  its  credit. 
Possibly  the  figures  would  have  been  larger  had  not 
the  Revolution  of  1901  brought  about  the  exile  of 
the  Jesuits.  The  English  assistancy  which  until 
recently  included  the  United  States,  has  now  1,622 
members  of  whom  793  are  priests  and  544  scholastics: 
England  750,  Canada  472  and  Ireland  400.  The 
assistancy  of  America  has  2,892  members  of  whom  1,230 
are  priests  with  a  future  supply  to  draw  on  of  1,214 
scholastics.  The  contingent  of  scholastics  exceeds  that 
of  an  /  other  assistancy  by  more  than  a  hundred.  The 
provi-ice  of  California  has  485  members,  Maryland- 
New  York,  i, 080;  Missouri,  1,022  and  New  Orleans,  305. 

Besides  its  regularly  established  houses  the  Society 
has  missions  scattered  throughout  the  world.  Thus, 
in  Europe  its  missionaries  are  to  be  found  in  Albania; 
in  Asia,  they  are  working  in  Armenia,  Syria,  Ceylon, 
Assam,  Bengal,  Bombay,  Poona,  Goa,  Madura,  Man- 
59 


930  The  Jesuits 

galore,  Japan,  Canton,  Nankin,  and  South  East 
Tche-ly.  In  Africa,  they  are  in  Egypt,  Cape  Colony, 
Zambesi,  Rhodesia,  Belgian  Congo,  and  Madagascar, 
Mauritius  and  Reunion;  in  America,  they  are  working 
in  Jamaica  and  among  the  Indians  of  Alaska,  Canada, 
South  Dakota,  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  Pimeria, 
and  Guiana;  finally  in  Oceania,  they  are  toiling  in 
Celebes,  Flores,  Java,  and  the  Philippines.  To  these 
missions  1,707  Jesuits  are  devoting  their  lives  in  direct 
contact  with  the  aborigines. 


INDEX 


Africa,  85  et  seq. 
Akala,  52 
Aletfambe,  867 
Alegre,  370 
Alexandria,  109.  8n 
Alfonso  Rodriguez,  St.,  383 
Altjonquins,  338 
Allen,  Cardinal,  i34sq. 
Allouez.  338 
Aloysius,  St..  181 
Alphonsus  Liguori.  St.,  380,  604 
Alva.  Duke  of,  428 
Amaguchi,  167 
Amherst,  594 
Amiot,  632 
Anchicta,  89 
Anderledy,  763,  899 
Andrada,  237.  372 
Angiolini,  678 
Angola,  85 
Antilles,  306 
Appellants,  153 
•  Aquaviva,  Claudius,  I32sq. 
Aquaviva,  Rudolph,  75,  384 
Aranda,  421.  507 
Araoz.  36,  104,  203 
Archetti,  648 
Archipresbyterate,  153 
Areval9,  836 
Armenians,  805 
Arnauld,  n,  216,  277 
Asia,  229  et  seq. 

Assembly  of  the  Clergy,  412,  486 
Aubetierre,  497,  530 
Auger,  41,  57 
Augustinus,  281 
Avopado,  678 
Avril,  260 
Azevedo,  90,  384 

B 

Backers,  de,  868 
Baertz,  77 
Bagnorea,  30 
Bagotists,  244 
Baius,  112 
Baldc,  358,  362 
Ballerini,  878 
Barat,  Mme.,  672 
Baronius,  112 
Basilians,  902 
Bathe,  Christopher,  307 
Bathori,  123 
Beaumont,  de,  488,  588 
Beguines,  2 
Beirut,  807 

Bellarmine,  68,  no,  215 
Belloc,  285 
Bengy,  de,  761 
Bemslawski,  65 
Bernis,  Cardinal,  532sq. 
Berry  er,  737 
Beschi,  233 
Betagh,  912 


Beard,  334 

Biblical  Institute,  764 
Billiart,  673 
Billot,  Cardinal.  914 
Blackweil,  153       • 
Bobadilla,  2isqq. 
Bobola.  384 
Bollandists.  370,  869 
Bonzes,  80,  256 
Borgias,  102 
Boscovich,  367,  622 
Bossuet,  353 
Bouhours,  367 
Bourdaloue,  264,  283 
Boxer  uprising,  791 
Brazil,  87  et  seq. 
Brebeuf,  291,385 
Bressani,  336 
Brittq,  John  de,  233 
Broglie,  Charles  de,  665 
Brouet,  25sqq. 
Brugelette,  757 
Brzozowski,  685 
Bungo,  176 
Busenbaum,  380 
Butetix,  338 
Bye  Plot,  157 
Cabral,  87,  174-5 


Calcutta,  764,  794-5.  801,  829,  8a.j 
California,  828,  833,  926.  929.     See  Lower 

California 

Calvinists,  87.  334,  801 
Cambrensis,  137 

Campion,  134,  136-40,  143-6.  384.  857 
Canada,  262,  291,  334-9,  425-6,  594.  7". 

764,  781,  824,  874,  921 
Canisius,  Peter,  2,  23,  45.  Si.  65,  67.  70, 

102,  272.  345,  384.  598,  915 
Canonization,  381-2 
Canton,  248,  250,  252,  260-1,  930 
Capuchins,  292,  312,  500,  on. 
Caraffa,  208,  225.  391,  549,  574 
Carbonari,  894.  897 
Carbonelle,  857 
Cardinals,  914 
Caribs,  309 
Carinthia,  346,  376 
Carlos,  Don,  742 
Carmelites,  80 1,  869 
Carranza,  53 
Carroll,  Charles,  71 1 
Carroll,  John.  595.  616,  659.  674.    /<-o, 

706,  711,  732,  882,  906 
Cartagena,  305,  314 
Cartography,  253,  3?6,  631,  852,  861 
Casaubon,  118-9.  221 
Cases  of  Consicence,  290 
Caste,  230,  250,  264,  797,  802 
Casuistry,  285 
Catechism, 3 8  (of  Canisius,  49) ;  (of  Trent), 

54.  1 08 

"  Catechisme  des  Jesuites,"  273 
Catherine  II,   Empress  of  Russia,   587, 

605,  635,  641-60,  662,  677,  719 


931 


932 


Index 


Catholic  Encyclopedia,  866 

Catholicae  Ftdei.  38.  661,  694.  716 

Cathrein.  288,  880 

Caughnawaga,  338,  775 

Cavalcanti,  853 

Cayenne.  312.  841 

Celibacy,  120 

Centuiators  of  Magdeburg.  49 

Ceylon.  802.  003,  929 

Chabanel,  336,  385,  913 

Challoner,  599.  602,  906 

Charles  V.,  Emperor,  9,  23.  38,  44,  51, 

102,  344 

Charles  Borromeo,  St.,  15,  102,  138,  218 
Charlevoix,  1 71,370* 
Cheminais,  481 

Chile,  298,  373.  425,  529.  627,  "62,  774 
China,  81,  124,   173.  245-67,  37?.  37S. 

424,  470.  627.  679.  770,  776.  788-93. 

824,  828,  834,  843,  861 
Choiseul,   Due  de,  314,  419.   429,   496, 
„  500T3,  509.  512,  524.  535 
Christina  of  Sweden,  1 28 
"  Civilta  Catolica,"  874,  899 
Clavigero,  369,  619 
Clavius.  246.  355.  371 
Clement  VIII.  56,  in,  113.  118,  153-5, 
_  157.  209,  213,  217,  240.  385.  436,  5S6 
Clement  XIII,  15,  422,  435  et  seq. 
Clement  XIV,  4,  436  et  seq. 
Clerc,  760,  916 
Clergy,  native,  262 
Clermont,  College  of,  57,  115,  216,  273, 

345 
Cloriviere,  671,  676,  691,  700,   720,  739, 

751,  880,  916 
Coblentz,  67 
Cochin-China,  241-2 
Cochin,  82,  771 
Cochlaeus,  42 
Cocomaricopas,  319 
Cocospera.  323 
Codier,  354 
Codure,  23,  29,  36,  39 
Coeffler,  256 
Coello,  801 
Coelho,  182 
Coeurdoux,  233 
Cogordan,  60,  100 

Coimbra,  43,  443,  464,  542,  682,  743 
Coleridge,  883 

Collegio  Pio-Latino,  853,  809 
Collegium  Germanicum,  50.  56.  66,  70, 

345,  852.  891.  925 
Collegium  Maximum,  897 
Collins,  149 

Cologne,  42,  288,  34S,  433.  837 
Colombia,  304,  761 
Colombiere,  de,  385,  395,  402 
Colonna,  208 
Columbini,  639 
Cotnmendone,  113 
Commerce,  443,  450,  457,  459 
"  Common  Rules,"  133,  728 
Compania  de  Jesus.  7 
Concanen,  706-7 
Concordat,  687 

Conde,  60,  63,  353.  356.  366,  391,  666 
Confession,  Seal  of,  008 
Confessor,  Royal,  201 
Congo.  Belgian,  85,  822-4,  930 
Congregations,  General,  33,  37,  197,  210, 
_  652,  6S7.  722-4,  727.  923 
Congruism,  116 
Comnck,  379 
Connolly,  707 
Cor-.salvi,  572,  600,  703,  724.  864 


Conscience,  Account  of,  33 
Constantinople,  239.  267,  627,  632,  806, 

809 
Constitution,  31-5,   roi,   133,   199,   207, 

213.  381,  386.  484,  695,  728 
Conti,  416 

"  Continental  System,"  686 
Coppee,  360 
Copts,  86,  805,  816 
Cordara,  369,  572,  619,  924 
Corea,  242,  249,  772 
Corneille,  353 
Cornelius  a  Lapide,  381 
Correa.  127 
Corrientes,  300 
Comely,  881-2 
Cornoldi,  880 
Corsica,  523,  615 
Cortie,  841-2 
Coton,  201,  290-1 
Cottam,  141,  144,  146 
Coulon,  702 
Courtois,  357 
Cracow,  763 
Crarganore,  75 
Crashaw,  360 
Cremona,  181 
Crttineau-Joly,  746 
Crichton,  150,  152,  233 
Crimea,  806 
Criminal!,  77,  8r 
Crimont,  781 
Crisin,  915 
Cristaldi,  698 
Critonius,  149 
Croix,  Camille  de  la,  838-9 
Croix,  Etienne  de  la,  491-5 
Crollanza,  617 
Cruz,  da,  452 

gruz,  Caspar  de  la,  245 
ubosama,  173,  175.  182 
Cuevas,  880 
Cullen,  909 
Curco,  55,  214 
Czechp  Slovakia,  924 
Czernicivicz,  645-9  et  seq 


Dablon,  338 

Dalmatia,  389,  758.  807 

Daniel,  263,  282,  335-6.  339.  385,  598,  915 

"  De  Auxiliis,"  214 

Decvelals,  Law  of,  906 

"  De  defectibus  Societatis,"  275 

"  De  defensione  fidei,"  116 

"De  fide  catholica,"  889 

Delahaye,  871 

Demerara.  714,  907,  941 

Denonville,  de,  338 

Denza,  835 

Descartes,  129,  353 

Dillingen,  43,  48,  67,  117,  346 

"  Directorium,"  200 

Discipline,  251-3 

Dispensation,  33 

Dissolution,  109 

Dobrizhoffer,  840 

Domenech,  56 

Dominicans,  52,  76.  187,  189,  214,  245. 

256.  265,  306,  312,  334,  464,  703,  706. 

816 

Dominis,  de,  220,  289 
Dominus  ac  Redemptor,  549-50,  552-76, 

588-94,  638,  649,  690 
Douai,  135,  138.  500 
Dracontius,  836 


Index 


933 


Drama,  865-9 

Dresden,  686 

Drexellius,  396 

Drury.  ISO,  164 

Dublin,  149-50 

Dublin,  University  of,  137 

Duelling,  286 

Dupin,  443.  748-SO,  752 

Duplessis-Mornay,  220 

Duprez,  629 

Duran,  373 

Duvernay,  501 

Dynamism,  623 

E 

Eck,  43 

Ecuador,  425,  529,  761,  828 

Education,  56,  64,  68,  343-57,  567.  639, 

644,  647,  653,  658,  695.  704,  736,  7.15, 

748.  778,  835-38,  853.  901 
Egypt.  806.  8 1 6,  834.  862,  930 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  135,  141,  144,  153,  IS5, 

182,  228,  274 

"  End  justifies  the  Means,"  287-9 
England,   278,  424,  426,  6ia.  675,  681. 

683,  685,  691,  703.  7i8,  743,  760,  764, 

704.  828,  857.  876,  892,  927 
England,  John,  707-8 
English  College,  148,  152,  578 
Equivocation,  286 
"  Etudes,"  874 
Examen,  Particular,  14 
Excommunication,  222-6 
Exercises,  14 
Expulsion,    212,    451,    462-70,    499-503, 

513-29,  548.  553,  562,  566,  627,  720, 

734,  743,  756-62,  828.  898,  920 


Faber,  Peter,  Bl.,  522sqq. 

Faith,  Fathers  of  the,  669sqq. 

Falloux  Law,  757 

Farinelli,  505 

Farmer,  906 

Febronius,  433 

Feller,  619 

Fenwick.  Benedict,  704 

Finding  of  the  Christians,  106 

Flagellants,  92 

Flesselles,  de,  491 

Fourquevaux,  Baron  de,  41 

Francis  Borgia,  St.,  53,  102,  i  I7sqq. 

Francis  Xavier,  St.,  5,  29,  l66sqq. 

Francis  Regis,  St.,  775 

Franzelin.  877,  889 

French  Revolution,  626 


Gag9,  1 66 
Gallitzin,  713 
Gallicanism,  416,  494,  609 
Garnet,  147 
Gamier,  Charles,  336 
Garreau,  338 
Gaudan,  40 
Georgetown,  ?O4sqq. 
Gerard,  160 
Gioberti,  755 
Goa,  74 
Goez,  250 
Goldwell,  138 
Gonzalez,  Tirsio,  415 
Goupil,  336 
Grassel,  616,  713 
Grassi,  679,  704 


Gregory  de  Valencia,  374 
Cresset,  353 
Grivel,  666 
Grou,  354,  619 
Gruber,  6s8sqq. 
Guidiccioni,  31 
Gunpowder  Plot,  I43sqq. 


Hagenbrunn,  667 
Hay,  150 
Healey,  821 
Hell,  618 
Helot,  772 
Henry  IV,  60,  113 
Hindostan,  242 
Hirando,  1 68 
Hoensbroech,  288 
Hontheim,  433 
Hotel  Dieu,  594 
Howard,  Cardinal,  408 
Hozes,  25 

Hungarian  College,  69 
Hurons,  335 
Hurter,  866 


Ibanez,  203 

Iberville,  307 

Ignatius  Loyola,  St.,  5-13,  21-4,  36. 

75,  93.  96-9 

Inquisition,  21,  127,  200,  225sqq. 
Iroquois,  320 
Isla.  366 
Ivory  Coast.  824 


.Tafanapatam,  233 

Japan,  73,  78,  166-196 

James  II,  403 

Jansenists,  221,  417,  573 

Jesuati,  i 

Jogues,  336sqq. 

John  Berchmans,  St.,  382 

John  Casimir,  403 

John  Francis  Regis,  St.,  383 

Joseph  II,  421,  547,  604 


K 

Kabyles,  814 

Kandy,  805 

Kareu,  652 

Kaunitz,  421 

Kenny,  715,  892 

King,  Thomas,  772 

Kino,  316,  372 

Kleutgen,  879 

Knight,  595 

Kohlmann,  659,  706,  878 

Krudner,  Mnie.,  717 


Laennec,  738 
Lafargeville,  263 
Lafitaux,  840 
La  Fleche,  118,  218 
Lafreniere,  502 
Lahore,  229 
Laimbeckhoven,  603 
Lainez,  5 
Lalande,  336 
Lalement,  Charles,  291 
Lallement,  Louis,  396 
Lancicius,  381.  385,  396 


934 


Index 


La  Petite  Eglise,  675 

Larkin,  913 

Lascaris.  831 

Laval,  Scholasticate,  757 

Laval,  Montmorency  de,  244-5,  337 

Lavigerie,  815 

Lazarists,  627,  633-4 

Le  Camus,  289 

Ledochowski,  Wladimir,  926 

Lehmkuhl,  288,  886 

Leibnitz,  361,  377 

T^jay,  25,  29-30 

Le  Moyne,  337 

Leo  XII  (della  Genga),  676,  722,  848,  909 

Lessius,  114,  147 

Lewger,  339,  706 

Liberatore,  874 

Ligny,  de.  619 

Litta,  693-4 

Loisy,  886 

Longhaye,  857 

Loretto,  329 

Loriquet,  702,  878 

Louisiana,  425-6,  500-2 

Louis-le- Grand,  353-5 

Lou  vain,  57 

Lower  California,  315-8 

Ludolph  of  Saxony,  I,  12 

Lugo,  de,  21,  116-7 


Macao,  189 

Macartney,  Lord,  68 1 

McCarthy,  739 

McCloskey,  909 

Macedo,  Antonio,  128-9 

Macedonio,  549-5O,  574-5.  577 

Machado,  187,  372 

McSherry,  913 

Madagascar,  816-20 

Madras,  769 

Madura,  230,  233-5 

Madgeburg,  Centuriators  of,  49 

Mai,  371 

Mailla,  de,  834,  861 

Maiinbourg,  367,  411 

Maistre,  de,  642 

Malagrida,  453 

Maldonado,  115,381 

Malesherbes,  353 

Malta,  528 

Manera,  901 

Mangalore,  75 

Manila  Observatory,  851-3 

Manresa,  13,  703 

Maranhao,  425 

Marefoschi,  539 

Margry,  291 

Mariana,  205,  274-5 

Maria  Theresa,  Empress  of  Austria,  419. 

432,  616,  638,  869 
Marie  Antoinette,  434 
Marie  de  Llncarnation,  307 
Marie  Leczinska,  618 
Maronites,  239 
Marot,  30 

Marquette,  338,  372,  921 
Martin,  Felix,  873 
Martin,  Luis,  37,  369 
Martinique,  306,  311 

Maryland,  262,  339-41.  595,  832,  908,  929 
Mass6,  291,  334-5 
Massillon,  364 
Mastrilli,  193 
Mattei,  694,  724 
Maury,  366,  849 


Mazzella,  879,  901,  914 

Mazzini,  755 

Melanchthon,  42-3.  45.  846 

Menard,  338 

Mendoza,  Bp.  of  Cuzco,  214 

Mercurian,  34,  36 

Meschler.  883 

Meurin,  800 

Mexico,  54,  221-7,  929 

Michelct,  745,  754 

Miege,  913 

Milan,  138,  181 

Milner,  7<H 

Mindanao,  777 

Mingrelia,  239,  806 

Miro,  92-3 

Mjssal,  Chinese.  261 , 264 

Missions  Etrangeres,  241 

Mohawks,  307 

Mohilew,  646-7,  649,  657,  718 

Moigno,  Francois,  839 

Molinism,  102,  116,  379,  575 

Molyneux,  425 

Monita  secreta,  270,  275-7 

Montalembert,  745-6,  749 

Montecqrvo,  439 

Montlosier,  737,  739 

Montluc,  41 

Montmarte,  24 

Montreal,  428 

Monts,  de,  334 

Montserrat,  12 

"  Monumenta  historic*  Societatis  Jesu," 

924 

Morcelli,  837 
Moscow,  267,  643,  686 
Murr,  472,  503 
Muzloum,  808 
Muzzarelli,  624 
Myrose,  233 

N 

Nagasaki,  174,  184-7,  189,  193-6,  383 
Naples,  in,  199,  210,  392,  427.  439.  5O6. 

537.  542.  587,  611,  756 
Navarrete,  257,  259.  262,  332 
Neale,  Leonard,  616,  706,  713,  907 
Negroes,  305,  311,  503,  712,  812-24 
New  Orleans,  500,  594,  833,  926,  929 
New  York,  263,  338,  706,  764,  828,  832, 

907,  9n,  929 

New  York  Literary  Institute,  706,  908 
Nicaragua,  777 

Nieremberg  y  Otin,  u,  395,  381 
Nigeria,  824 

Nobili,  de,  230-3,  292-3,  396,  424.  768 
Nobrega,  87-90 
Nochistongo  tunnel,  315 
"  Nomenclator,"  877 
Norridgewock,  709 
Nossibe,  817 
Notobirga,  275 
Novices,  564 


Dates,  Titus,  402,  406-10,  407-9 

Obedience,  92,  95,  911 

Observatories,  840-5,  848,  851 

Oceania,  930 

Ochino,  30 

Odescalchi,  893,  895sqq. 

Office,  Divine,  54,  101,  568 

Office,  Term  of,  213 

Ogilvie,  151 

Ojetti,  883 

Oldcorne,  161-4 


Index 


935 


Oliva,  260,  290.  391,  394,  399-402,  405, 

408,  410 

O'Reilly,  Edmund,  878 
Orientalists,  829,  862 
Orrnanetto.  199,  203 
Orsini,  Cardinal,  396,  53O,  S35sqq. 
Oviedo,  36,  56,  59,  85,  104,  161-2,  194 
Oxford,  136,  764 
Pacca,  433-4,  442,  542,  606,  611,  618, 

687-94,  698,  703,  724 
Palafox.  221-7,  544.  546 
Pallavicini,  380,  396,  635.  892 
Pampeluna,  9,  10,  1 1,  304 
Pancaldi,  722 
Papebroch,  869 
Paphlagonia,  239 
Paraguay,   299-304.  347.  373,  4i8,   425, 

444-8,  454,  509,  627.  762,  774.  776 
Pariahs,  235,  802 
Paris,  22,  36,   118,  243,   281,  671,  699, 

747-8,  757,  ?6l 
Paris,  Parliament  of,  3,  15.  56,  63,  216, 

280,  401,  485,  493,  497,  631,  748 
Paris,  University  of,  56,  70,  748,  927 
Parma,  210,  439,  528,  637,  669,  677,  699 
Pascal,  278,  281-7,  295 
"  Pascendi  Munus,"  588 
Passaglia,  887,  898 
Passionei,  422,  456 
Patrizi.  878,  881 
Paul  III,  Pope,  15,  28,  31,  34,  38,  556, 

728,  918 
Paul  IV,  Pope,  35,  46,  71,  101,  173,  198, 

553.  556 
Paul  V,  Pope,  56,  116,  157,  264,  390,  556, 

559 

"  Paulistas,"  392 
Pazmany,  68,  396 
Pearl-Fisheries,  74 
Pekin,  249,  252,  254,  256,  258-61,  265, 

629.  633.  790 
Perinde  ac  cadaver,  35 
Periodicals,  874-6 
Persia,  239,  244,  267,  410,  424,  806 
Persons,  136,  138-40,   151-55,   164,   177, 

499 

Peru,  54,  272,  295-98,  425,  529 
Peruvian  bark,  299 
Pesch,  288,  880 
Petau  (Petavius),  118,  395 
Peter  Claver,  St.,  305,  383,  396,  901,  915 
Petre,  402 
Petrucci,  721-4 
Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  54,  100,  113,  116, 

131,  151,  177,  181,  202,  204,  207,  200- 

13,  274,  296,  333,  344,  42O,  557 
Philippines,  183,  180,  191,  245,  255,  333, 

376,  426,  476,  785.  835,  930 
Philosophy,  355-7,  378-80 
Piedmont,  756 
Pignatelli,  Joseph,  511,  523,  525,  658,  677, 

726,  863,  911,  916 
Pimas,  318-21,  3B3 
Pious  Fund,  328 
Pius  V,  St.,  Pope,  48,  49,  54,  100,  109, 

113.  198,  439,  557 
Pius  VI,  521,  572,  586,  608-10,  614,  620, 

624,  640,  649-51,  653-58,  667,  677,  684, 

691,  712,  981 
Pius  VII,  Pope,  5.  353.  572,  605,  624,  661, 

675,  678,  683,  687-94,  697-9,  722-7, 

733.  840,  864,  885,  891,  904 
Pius  VIII,  741,  893.  90S 
Pius  IX,  Pope,  16,  196,  732,  756,  849, 

853,  854,  857,  874,  888-90,  898,  903-6, 

90S.  915 
Plowden,  597,  674,  714.  732,  913 


Poetry,  258-^3.  S.,6,  860 

Poissy  Colloquy,  00-63,  102 

Poland,  124,  275,  357.  376,  404,  424,  546. 

548,  587,  605,  634,  637.  643,  7i8.  722, 

926,  929 
Polotsk,   347.   644,   646,   650,   652,   057. 

659-60,  664 
Pombal,  Marquis  de,  419.  421.  43O,  437, 

442-79,    503,    509,    605    612-15,    683, 

703,  743 

Pondicherry,  260,  292,  426,  631 
"  Popish  Plot,"  407 
Portugal,  36,    42,  92,  126.  177,  242,  269, 

344,  416,  421,  426,  430,  438,  442-70, 

498,   502,  537,  550.  553.  587.  605,  612. 

627,  682,  703,  742,  759,  764,  793,  815, 

826,  876,  929 

Possevin,  121-23,  129.  201,  208,  218 
Poverty,  33,  240-51,  394.  397,  556,  728 
Prague,  47,  67,  123.  138,  345,  3^8 
Printing,  49,  55.  659.  829 
Probabiliorism,  415 
Probabilism,  380,  415.  575 
Propaganda,  693,  897,  903 
Property,  33,  222-23,  602,  616 
Property.  Confiscation  of,  478,  485.  5OO, 

513.  523.  528,  540,  548,  577.  720,  759 
Prose,  366-67 
Proselytism,  720 
"  Provinciates,"  of  Pascal,   281-87.  689, 

745 
Prussia,  426,  635,  636-41,  686.  718,  758 


8uebec,  263,  291,  307,  334 
uesnel,  417.  575 
Quinet,  282 

R 

Ragueneau,  337 

Raleigh.  is6sq. 

Rami^re,  883 

Rasle,  709 

"  Ratio  studiorum,"  70,  200 

Ravignan,  de,  4,  435 

Raymbault,  336 

Raynal,  419 

"  Razon  y  Fe,"  874sq. 

Realini,  Bernardino,  390 

Recollect  Friars,  334sq. 

Redemptorists,  604 

Reductions,  Philippine,  777 

Reductions  of  Paraguay,  301-04,  444~4° 

Reeve,  595,  619 

Regale,  410-12 

Reggio,  699 

Regimini  Militantis  Ecclesiae,  31 

Renaudot,  291 

Relations,  871-4 

Retz,  4i8sq 

Rezzonico,  532 

Rho,  259 

Rhodes,  Alexander  de,  240-45 

Ribadeneira,  36,  204 

Riccadonna,  8o7sq 

Ricci,  Lorenzo,  419-22,  436,  44osq.,  511. 

521,  848 

Ricci,  Scipio,  609 
Richelieu,  274,  388sq.,  290 
Riot  of  the  Sombreros,  siosq.,  546 
Ripalda,  206,  876 
Robaut,  781 
Rodrigues,  176,  184 
Rodriguez,  Alphonsus,  381,  396 
Rodriguez,  Simon,  23,  24,  72 


936 


Index 


Roh.  92 1 

Roman  College,  69 

Romberg,  Assistant,  585 

Roothaan.  John,  398,  667,  706 

Rosas,  762 

Rosmini,  898 

Rossi,  Giovanni  Battista  de,  836 

Rossi,  Guizot's  envoy,  750 

Rosweyde,  370 

Roth,  840 

Rozaven,  625,  719  et  seq.,  898 

Rubillon,  Ambrose,  773 

Russia,  841 

Russian  Church,  642 

Ruthenia,  902 

Ryllo,  Maximilian,  8nsq. 


Sabbetti.  886 

Sacchini,  369,  923 

Sacred  Heart,  Fathers  of  the.  666-668 

bacred  Heart,  Ladies  of  the,  672  so 

St.  Acheul,  740 

St.  Bartholomew  Massacre,  272 

St.  Beuno's,  764 

St.  Clement's  Island,  339 

Sainte-Beuve,  283  sq.,  745 

Saint-Germain-des-Pres.,  Chapel,  58 

St.  Julian,  Castle,  469-472 

Samt-Jure,  381 

Saint  Kitts,  306-310 

St.  Michel,  Brussels,  870 

St.  Omers,  407 

St.  Sulpice,  Society  of,  244 

St.  Vincent,  Admiral,  704 

Saints,  914-5 

Salamanca,  21 

Saldanha,  421-2 

Salmeron,  Alphonsus,  ai,  45 

Salsette,  170,  229 

Salvatierra,  222,  321 

Sancian,  Island  of,  84 

Sanguinetti,  883 

San  Sebastian,  prison,  743 

Sant'  Andrea,  762 

Santel,  360 

Sarbiewski,  359 

Sardinia,  304,  758 

Sarpi,  ii2,  220sq. 

SaultSte.  Marie,  338 

Saxony, 718 

Scaramelli,  381 

Schall.  Adam,  254-261,  373 

Scheiner,  848 

Scholastics,  485 

Schreiner,  Christopher,  371 

Science,  248-250,  631,  371,  834sq. 

Scientia  media,  215 

Scotch  Doctor,  38 

Scotland,  40,  150 

Secchi,  371,  835 

Secret  Members,  of  Jesuit  Order,  35 

Secularization,  6oosq. 

Sedeno,  333 

Sedlmayer,  372 

Segneri,  364 

Segura.  54 

Seminaries,  44,  65-67 

Seqxiiera,  185 

Sestini,  84359. 

Seven  Years  War,  425,  482sq. 

Sewall,  732,  683 

Shea,  Gilmary.  873 

Sherwin,  144 

Shin-toism,  166 

Shogun, 175 


Siam,  234 

Sicily,  504 

Sidgreaves,  Walter,  841 

Sierra  Leone,  824 

Siestrzencewicz,  643 

Sigismond.  King  of  Poland,  35,  122,  208 

Silesia,  637 

Silverira,  85 

Simpson,  751 

Sin  (Mandarin),  250 

Sin,  Paul,  see  Zi,  771 

"Sined,"  860 

Sioux,  779 

Sirmond,  354 

Si-Senoussi,  Sheik  and  Jesuit  Constitu- 
tions, 35 

Sixtus  V,  Pope,  p.  7,  in,  202,  1 80,  206- 
209,  556-558 

Skarga,  367 

Slingsby,  Francis,  I49sq. 

Smet,  Peter  de,  779-81 

Smolensk,  686 

Smyrna,  239 

Sobieski,  John,  394,  397,  404 

Sodalities,  68,  297,  738 

Sollicitudo  omnium  ecclesiamm,  694-6 

Sommervogel,  868 

Sorbonne,  216-7,  290 

Soto,  115 

Sotwel,  867 

Sousa,  87-8 

Southey,  90 

Southwell,  147-8,  358 

Spain,  36,  43,  202-14,  51-3 

Sparks,  908 

"  Speculum  Jesuiticum,"  273 

Spec,  von,  117,  36lsqq. 

Spinola,  185 

Spiritual  Exercises,  13-15,  381,  9i8sqq. 

Squillace,  428  507 

Stanislaus  Kostka,  St.,  48,  382,  418 

Stanton,  Father,  785-8 

Staritza,  124 

Statistics,  418-9,  550,  777,  Soosqq. 

Steinhuber,  887 

Steins,  795 

Stephens,  I4l9qr;. 

"  Stimmen  aus  Maria  Laach,"  874sqq. 

Stone,  710 

Stonestreet,  706 

Stonyhurst,  500,  732 

Strada,  36,  53,  56,  359 

Strassmaier,  845,  863 

Stritch.    See  Bathe 

Stuart,  Henry.     See  York,  Cardinal  of 

Su^rez,  21.  116,  281,  379,  390,  395,  416 

486,  876 
Suau,  52sqq. 
Sulpicians,  713 
Superior,  Lake,  336 
Suppression,  442-603 
Surin,  381,  395 
Suttee,  804 

Sweden,  120-24,  404,  68 1,  685 
Swetchine,  730 

Switzerland,  346,  587,  617,  728,  734,  740 
Syria,  240,  632,  806-9,  929 


Tamburini,  417-8,  575 
Tamil,  231,  362 
Tanucci,  421,  506  et  seq. 
Tapparelli,  874 
Tartary,  244,  770 
Tegakwitha,  337-8 


Index 


937 


Theology.  3  78-8 1,  852,  864-5,  87<J-9,  885- 

90,  901. 

Tibet,  237-8,  372,  378 
Toletus,  5.  54,  H2-S.  152,  197.  209-13. 

215,  218,379,  401,  876 
Tongiorgi,  836,  878 
Tonkin,  241,  245 
Torres,  Cosmo  de,  76,  79.  93 
Torres,  166-7,  169,  174,  188 
Torres,  Luis  de,  381 
Tournon,    Charles-Thomas-Naillard,    de, 

259 

Tournon,  Francois  de,  40,  60 
Trent,  Council  of,  8,  33,  44-6,  48,  62,  108, 

138,  ISO.  557,  563 
Trichinopoly,  802,  805,  829 
Tyburn,  141,  146 
Tyrnau,  69 


Ucondono,  172,  182-3,  189 

Ugarte,  316,  326-7,  329-31 

Uniates,  805-6,  811 

"  Unigenitus,"  575 

Urban  VIII,  113,  119,  192,  255,  385,  390, 

400,  560 
Urban  College,  894,  897 


Valencia,  Gregorio  de,  21,  117-8,  215 

Valignani.  173-4,  176,  183-5,  246-7 

Valkenburg,  763,  875 

Valladolid,  43,  53,  n  6,  151,  206,  406,  409 

Van  Ortroy,  384 

Varin,  665,  669,  671-6,  701,  730.  733,  911 

Vasa,  House  of,  404 

Vasquez,  Dionisio,  5-7,  109,  304-7,  209, 

268 

Vasquez,  Gabriel,  21,  68,  379,  486 
Verbiest,  257.  261,  264,  375,  377 
Vicars  General,  38,  651-2. 
Vico,  de,  371,  843,  848-9 
Vieira,  126-8,  130,  192,  363,  367,  396, 

449.  477 

Villemain,  748-50,  754-5 
Vilna,  University  of,  347,  660,  848 


Vitelleschi,  269-71,  387,  390-2,  394,  306- 

8,825 

Vives  y  Tuto,  853 
Vows,  32-3,  548,  557,  564,  609,  616,  659, 

684,  746 

W 

Wadding,  315-6 

Wasmann,  840 

Waterclock,  625 

Wauchope  (Waucop).  38,  41 

Wealth,  348,  445.  45O,  481,  559 

Weld,  431,  443,  820,  841 

Wendrok.    See  Nicole 

Wernz,  763,  828,  883,  904.  906,  926 

White,  307,  339-40 

Whitebread,  408 

Whitemarsh,  712,  779 

White  Russia,  267,  735.  773 

Witchcraft,  117,361 

Woodstock,  843 

"  Woodstock  Letters,"  875 

World  War,  761,  823,  828,  927 

Wilrzburg.  48,  67,  346 

Wynne,  866-7 


Xavier.  Francis.     See  Francis  Xavier,  St 
Xavier,  Jeronimo,  229-30,  306 
Xiraenes,  618 


York,  Cardinal  of,  532,  548.  575.  596 
York,  Duke  of,  408 
Yu-heen,  792 


Zacatecas,  315 

Zaccaria,  578,  619-21,  864.1877 

Zahle.  807,  809 

Zambesi,  794,  820-2,  824.!93<> 

Zapata,  39 

Zelada.  549.  574 

Zelanti.  534.  536 

Zikawei,  771,  79O-3.  828,  843 

Zoology,  834 

Zuniga,  de,  692,  703 


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